


A Noble Cause

by Monarch_Actual



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-09 23:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 62,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19486321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monarch_Actual/pseuds/Monarch_Actual
Summary: Spartan-B312, Noble Six, was not meant to leave her bones on the glasslands of Reach. She will be forced to fill the footsteps of a man a generation past, remolded to survive in a war she was made to die in, a spirit burning too bright to fall as Reach went dark. In honor of this, her unending journey, we honor her as the eternal flame of Noble. A novelization of Halo 2. (Originally posted on FFN)





	1. Running From Ghosts

**This work was originally published on FFN, and I completed it and began work on a sequel that's still in progress. I'll be updating this daily with more of its content, and eventually posting the sequel at some point. Author's notes will not be transferred over because I feel they might be out of context here, given most of the author's notes were just in response to reviews and PMs. But, I don't want to do another long winded opening note, so I hope all of you here on this new site enjoy my work, and thanks for giving me a look!**

* * *

_Spartan-B312, Noble Six, was not meant to leave her bones on the glasslands of Reach. She will be forced to fill the footsteps of a man a generation past, remolded to survive in a war she was made to die in, a spirit burning too bright to fall as Reach went dark. In honor of this, her unending journey, we honor her as the eternal flame of Noble. A novelization of Halo 2._

* * *

Silence fell around the skeletal remains of the Aszod Shipbreaking Yards as the final shot echoed off of the cliffs and gutted hulls of UNSC ships, and whatever the Covenant had lost during the Battle of Aszod. A field marshall, armor and body cratered by jacketed rounds, fell silent as one of the final invading casualties of the Fall of Reach.

Staring down at the ornate field commander, a single Spartan remained. Morgan-B312, Noble Six, let the assault rifle fall from her fingers, having been run dry. The sound of the weapon embedding itself in the dirt was the final nail in the coffin of hostilities on the Eposz continent. Even now, Covenant orbital assets were carving burning glyphs in the planet, purging the 'heresy' from Humanity's fortress amongst the stars and the foundries for the hated Demons.

Noble Six pressed her chin against a pressure sensor on the inside of her helmet. The Mark V armor responded, despite the damage that it had taken over the past month. Formerly sky blue plating was now pitted in areas, some sections of the armor having melted from the heat of plasma burns, and was now a mismatch of dust colored blue and bare titanium.

Displays came up inside of the gold colored visor. NOBLE Team's members showed in list format with ranks, service numbers, and current status. Last reports showed each armor signature had flatlined. Kat and Jorge showed a faded flat line, and were both listed as MIA. Carter and Emile both showed a brighter, but just as flat line, still well within transceiver range. With a few more gentle movements of her chin, Six moved their designations to MIA, despite having seen both Emile and Carter breathe their last. Finally, Jun's status was the sole lining in this whole disaster, a faded green line that had registered some of his last vitals.

With a final thought, Six made the final change to NOBLE's roster. Noble Six listed herself as MIA, despite the obvious green lifesigns that would flutter every so often. Running on close to no sleep and having not eaten in several days, even a Spartan would show signs of faltering.

Unfortunately for what may well have been the last Spartan, or even Human on Reach, things wouldn't change any time soon, and Morgan wasn't about to make the trip that Jorge had told her about before disappearing in a bubble of Slipspace over the planet.

With nothing left to do, Six started walking. Maybe if she was lucky, she'd get glassed and it'd be quick. It didn't take much thought to know that she'd starve otherwise.

* * *

Aszod was still smoking, the shipbreaking yards having become home to a few Covenant ships as well as whatever the UNSC had been breaking apart before Reach had fallen. Six poked through some of the wreckage, hoping something could be salvaged from this whole mess. There was no way she was piloting a capital ship out of here. All of those had been broken apart, and she couldn't fly it alone.

The stench of burnt ozone hung in the air, hours after the _Pillar of Autumn_ had lifted off and bugged out. With a passing thought, Six realized that it was entirely possible the _Autumn_ had been shot down on her way out, meaning everything had been for nothing.

With a displeased grunt inside of the Mark V helmet, Six backed out of the wrecked Phantom. It wouldn't be seeing the sky again, too much damage had been done.

Another sat not far off, buried half underneath the bones of the partially dismantled UNSC _Circumference._ It couldn't hurt to check, and it wasn't leaking black smoke like most of the others had been.

The steel walkways that made up most of the shipyard were no longer the clean steel they had been when the shipbreaking yards had been in operation. Now, they were coated in a layer of tan dust and the blood of aliens and Humans alike, with rivers of red, purple, and blue washing away some of the dust and grime.

Six ducked into the troop bay of the Phantom, hanging open and stopped at the maximum angle they could shift. An Elite lay dead in the troop bay, neck at an awkward angle, the lumps under the scaly skin showing it's neck had been broken.

With little more than the observing glance, Six went for the cockpit, Emile's shotgun cradled in her gauntlets. Bringing the stock to her shoulder, she pushed into the cockpit and scanned for anything still alive. Nothing moved, only the corpse of another Elite hunched forward, lifeless from the impact evidenced by the purple splatter that had dried on the viewport glass.

Satisfied, Six replaced the shotgun on her back, giving a silent word of thanks to Emile for having kept far too many shotgun shells for the weapon he used more like an artist than a soldier. Then again, most Spartans could be considered artists, their weapons the paintbrush that would paint masterpieces. Six snorted and slid the bulky pump action back onto the mag plates on her back.

Tapping some of the controls, Six felt relief course through her as the console lit up on the right side of the cockpit. She couldn't read Covenant at all, but she remembered some of the symbols from the training she had undergone on Onyx, and that would have to do.

Taking a seat at the console that wasn't occupied by the Elite whose egg had gotten scrambled, she attempted to get somewhat comfortable in a seat that was built for a physiology far different from her own. The hunched seat, while swallowing her in some sort of memory gel, did little to help her relax, and eventually she gave up entirely.

The Phantom's engines whined loudly in protest. The smooth wind up and powered sounds were gone, replaced instead by a shrill roar that made Six think the Phantom was a liability waiting to crash and strand her if she tried to fly it, but the Spartan had little other options and most Phantoms on the ground had been put there against their wills. Six would have to take her chances. At least this was another option for a quick death if everything went south.

With a few hesitant control inputs, the Phantom began an ascent, the pattern a gradual rise for the first few minutes, before the engines whined ever louder and a loud roar filled the cockpit. The sound startled the blue armored Spartan, but immediately after, the whine of the engines quieted to what could have been described as a low wail, more like a Banshee than a Phantom. Still, with Six's nerves being frazzled by the second, she only had one more obstacle to pass through.

The absolutely massive Covenant fleet still in orbit over Reach was swimming through space like a school of hungry sharks, the bulbous appearance of Covenant ship design making it look as if they were all swarming around the few whale-like super carriers and assault carriers.

The console began to change and shift, a symbol on the console lighting up and flashing with a soft pinging noise accompanying it. Six debated on pressing the holographic symbol, but decided not to. Swiping it to the right, she hoped it would get rid of the icon. As soon as she did though, there was another alert. Nearby ships were turning, and even at the long range she was at, she could see a flight of Seraphs suddenly turn and start burning towards her.

The lurch of the Phantom as she tried to push more power into the engines without overloading them matched the drop in her gut as she realized that had probably been a hail. Now, with cover blown, Six started to wrack her brain in an attempt at remembering some of the symbols, until finally, it came to her. Hesitantly, she swiped a few icons, moving slowly and deliberately as she walked through the steps in her mind, and arrived at the glyph for the slipspace drive.

Pressing an armored finger to the symbol, the Phantom began to whine once more, the pitch rising as the seconds ticked by and the distance between her Phantom and the encroaching Covenant went down. Even at this range, she could see plasma bolts leaving the forward cannons on the Seraphs, and even a Phantom Gunboat had vectored towards her, with heavier armament and far more shielding and armor than a Seraph. If she didn't make it out of this, she was done.

With a nervous glance out either side of the Phantom's viewport, she saw the shots growing closer, the front most bolts winking out as the strength on their magnetic containment fields failed and the plasma dissipated. Even still, with repeated bursts, the fire was growing closer, and as the whine reached an ever high pitch, she felt the Phantom rumble beneath her boots.

Warnings started to blare in the small cockpit as Six closed her eyes and waited to join the rest of the Spartan IIIs that had been thrown to the Reaper, and she had no doubt NOBLE was waiting for her.

A lurch went through the ship and she thought it was all over, but forcing her eyes open once more as she knocked on that door at the end of the trip that all the others had taken, she saw the bright portal open up, and the stars ceased to exist as the Phantom leaped into slipspace.

With a sigh that had come far too soon, Six's luck ran dry, and an explosion formed in the Phantom's bay, before sparks started to bite and claw at her armor in the cockpit. Another explosion sounded and the concussive force launched Six from the seat, throwing her into the wall and leaving a hefty dent in it as her shields flared gold and shattered.

The force alone nearly made the Spartan black out, her overtaxed body unable to keep up with all these newfound stresses. Laying on the floor, the blue armored Spartan struggled against the darkness for a few moments longer, before her willpower stopped being enough to stave off unconsciousness.

With the Phantom still pushing through Slipspace, an unknown amount of failures traveling through the dropship like an infection, Noble Six closed her eyes and waited for the end of her fight. The Phantom's engine noise and drive core ceased, replaced by the chiming of bells from a long distant memory.


	2. A Rude Awakening

Everything was blurry as Noble Six came back to the land of the living. Green eyes behind the polarized visor struggled to crack open. Her rest had been denied, and so the Spartan would continue on until fate decided she had earned the right to join her brothers and sisters.

The mission clock in the upper right corner of her HUD ticked on unceasingly. Four hours had passed while Six floated in the void. The viewport of the Phantom still showed blackness, with sparks leaking from the console she had taken as her own. The Elite corpse that had been in the other seat had been thrown, laying somewhere in the rear bay with the door separating the bay and cockpit having been forced open and left at an awkward seating in the tracks.

Six stood from where she had been thrown, wincing as she pulled something in her side. The armor didn't display a warning indicator after the tearing sensation, so it wasn't worth worrying about at the moment. Not like she could take her armor off to check it with her own eyes at this point. One of the explosions had torn a gash into the Phantom's right side, exposing it to the emptiness of slipspace. With the door between the bay and the cockpit nonfunctional, she was in a vacuum.

Six returned to the seat she had taken, each step irritating the pull in her side as she sat back down. Pulling vitals and diagnostics up in her HUD, she went through each system carefully. The explosion in the cockpit had shorted her shields, a few of the barely visible emitters on the heavy Commando pauldrons she wore had been broken off in the impact, and without a full array, she would be testing the Mjolnir armor's plating alone. Grazing hits were a common occurrence, but even Mjolnir would fail under several direct hits. Granted, it was better than the old SPI armor, but plasma tended to make short work of whatever it hit. The armor had been through more than even it had been expected to survive under, given nearly a month of continuous fighting with little time for maintenance, and she was thankful that it had lasted as long as it did.

On the other hand, vitals were mostly green, but with the neural connection between Six and the armor, she could see the warning symbol on her hip, just above it and to the left of her left kidney, a muscle had been torn. Inwardly, Six rolled her eyes. The muscle would heal with time and rest, but Six didn't have much of either at this point, and without anything to regain her energy, it was more likely she'd starve to death if the slipspace drive in the Phantom had been damaged enough to lock her inside of the multidimensional travel space.

A thought came through, one that she would rather have ignored. They had rigged up the UNSC _Savannah_ 's slipspace drive, using it to get rid of the monster of a super carrier that had been orbiting over Reach, the one Jorge had given his life for. Maybe, if things had gone for him like they had for her-

She shook her head, feeling a pressure behind her eyes as she did, and tried to avoid the places her mind wanted to drag her. No, there was no way Jorge would have survived. The radiation would have been too much. Besides, even if he had made the trip through to slipspace, with no way of interacting with the drive core, he'd be stuck in there forever.

Six desperately wanted to remove her helmet, to wipe some of the grime from her forehead, to rub her temples and try to appease the headache that was growing far too fast for her liking. There wasn't much she could do, however, with the whole being lost in slipspace thing. Even the painkillers stored in her armor had run out long ago.

Going through the armor's systems, she found the waste recycling system. Catheters and moisture wicking material on the inside of the bodysuit meant that all the sweat and other bodily fluids were managed well enough, allowing for extended use without resupply. Still, Six didn't like to think about it much.

Putting her head back against the seat, she sighed and closed her eyes again, but there wasn't much to wait for. A violent lurch had the green orbs wide open in an instant, and the Spartan's arms shot out to brace herself on the console. The sparks still shooting out bounced against the chest plate, slipping into the rack where shotgun shells liked to rest, but by now it had been emptied.

Six had barely started to wonder what was going on when another lurch came about. Barely recovered in any sense from the first time she was thrown across the cockpit, she struggled against inertia to prevent herself from taking flight once more. A third lurch was followed by an explosion in the bay again, with the fire winking out quickly in the vacuum.

The Spartan once again began preparing to go through her own funeral when the Phantom suddenly stopped. With the air gone, the engines had long ago quit their whine, but now it seemed like they had shut off completely. The vibration under her boots was gone, and a flash of light circled up ahead, with Six barely recognizing it as a tear in slipspace before the Phantom was shunted unceremoniously back into realspace.

Eyes wide open, Six started taking everything in. A bright blue-green marble sat below her, lights winking on and off all over the dark side of the planet as the sun pushed around the side to start the day for those that owned those lights. Blocky gray ships passed back and forth, and the ominous presence of several defense platforms hung suspended over the planet. By a quick estimate, Six counted at least a dozen of them nearby.

The confusion began to set in, however, almost immediately. Reach was a ball of glass and ghosts by now, and all the ships and orbital defense platforms in its orbit had been turned into slag. Reach's orbit was nothing but a graveyard now. So, why was she here, above a planet that was heavily defended by those very same orbital defense platforms and dozens of UNSC ships?

There was nothing she could do. Any UNSC forces that were patrolling with their sensors on would have seen the radiation burst from the Phantom as it shifted back into realspace, and Six could see at least one frigate that was closest to her had turned and started burning towards the disabled Phantom. A flight of Longswords led the way, with the Spartan feeling the crosshairs painting her up. As far as the UNSC knew, this was inhabited by the Covenant.

The consoles in the Phantom had gone dark after power was lost, and there was no way she would be able to signal the UNSC either way. Six stepped out of the cockpit quickly, grabbing her shotgun from where it hung suspended in the cockpit. No power meant no gravity, and with magnetized boots, she was able to stomp into the bay. The hole in the side showed nothing but twinkling stars.

Sticking her head through the gash in the hull, the gold colored visor reflected the planet below, the stars, and the lights from the ODPs. Within seconds, one of the Longswords passed by in a flash, before banking around and making a long sweep that allowed Six to see into the cockpit with little more than a squint, the visor automatically zooming in for her.

Maybe she could hail them at this range. "UNSC Sierra Bravo 312 calling Longsword flight," she called out, hoping the pilots could hear her. At first there was nothing, not even static. Had her comms suite been damaged in the explosion or during the battle on Reach? "I say again, Sierra Bravo 312 calling Longsword flight, do you read? Someone, anyone, respond!"

Nothing. With a curse, Six bit her lip. The Longswords were coming back around, and she got an idea. The helmet mounted light on the left side flashed to life, before cutting out again, and relighting. It did this again and again, flashing in a specific pattern. Three short flashes, three long flashes, three short flashes, and repeat. She had never expected to actually use Morse Code in such a technologically advanced suit of armor, even remembering how she thought it was an archaic means of communication during training, but of course it was just her luck that it would be what saved her.

The Longsword that had done its pass came about once more, but rather than buzzing her outright, it waggled its wings left, then right, and slowed its movements. The pilots inside stared through their canopy at her as they came in closer. The Spartan in blue waved at them. Inside the cockpit, she could see one of the pilot's bob their head, and the Longsword peeled off and flew back the way it had come.

A warning lit up her HUD, and her green eyes met red as the O2 symbol in the corner flashed, as well as the three sided radiation indicator. The radiation was nothing that Mjolnir couldn't handle, but the O2 indicator meant that she only had a few minutes of air remaining. Maybe getting knocked out had saved her, but she wasn't out of the woods yet.

The frigate that had been coming closer gave a flash as a Pelican jetted out of one of the belly slung hangars. The dropship moved in closer, far quicker than Pelicans usually flew outside of combat, and flared the tail out in a turn as it grew closer. The rear of the Pelican opened up, and an empty bay was what met her. Running a few calculations in her head, she jumped, aiming right at the door that would lead to the Pelican's cockpit at the far end of the bay.

The space flight she underwent was spot on, and on her way into the bay, she grabbed one of the standing handles, bending the steel bar as it slowed her weight. Her boots came down with a resounding clang, and as if on cue, the bay ramp shut, leaving the stranded Phantom to linger in space. ONI would be all over it. A hiss sounded as air started to flood back into the Pelican, and Six sighed in relief. With air entering the bay, slots on her armor opened up and allowed some of it in to refill her internal oxygen tanks. Six was quickly growing sick of stale air.

The cockpit door hissed open, and Six turned to look at the cockpit. Inside, one of the pilots looked back at her, while the other made to return to the platforms that orbited the planet below, the frigate that had launched it moving to recover the Phantom.

The auditory system in the helmet was still working, even if the comms weren't, and with Six's hearing amplified by the electronics, she heard the pilot start to speak. "What's a Spartan doing all the way out here? Didn't think you came in anything but green, Sir."

When Six's voice came out as a female, the pilot cocked his head, face unreadable behind the polarized visor and oxygen mask that all pilots wore. "Where am I? What happened to Reach?"

The pilots looked at each other this time. "Ma'am, Reach went down at the tail end of August, it's late October now. What happened to _you_?"

Six felt her stomach drop out of her, but the pilots saw nothing but the gold visor staring back. What had happened to her? Where had Slipspace taken her? She had only been in the Phantom a few hours, but almost two months had passed. Again, the pilots shared a glance before one spoke up again, sounding a bit more hesitant. "Ma'am? You alright?" He asked, and even over the thundering of her heartbeat in her ears, she could hear the other pilot calling ahead.

"-Cairo, possible Spartan casualty, have trauma teams on standby-." Six felt the weight of more than just one world on her. The damage the slipspace drive had taken during the flight from Reach must have caused some malfunction to cause this… time travel, or whatever it was. Nobody knew how the multidimensional slipspace jumps worked, not even the designers of the drive and the pioneers of the tech. It worked, and the Covenant had superior versions of the UNSC drives, so shouldn't they have been more reliable?

The steel deck beneath her lurched as the Pelican slid into the defense platform's hangar, and she realized she had gone stock still in the armor, spending the entire trip locked inside of her mind. One of the pilots was standing in front of her, waving a hand in front of the visor, even as a medical team stepped onto the rear ramp. Six turned to them, and immediately the medics stopped, none of them wanting to make an already jumpy Spartan worse.

She released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, and forced her fingers to relax out of the fists they had balled into. One of the medics stepped closer again. "Ma'am, I'm going to move you to one of our gurneys. You've been through a lot and we have reason to believe you're injured." He said, slowly and clearly. He didn't touch her, knowing he wouldn't be able to move her. Six's visor swiveled ever so slightly to look at him, and when he flinched, she nodded slowly, stepping forward and out of the Pelican's bay. None of the medics failed to notice the slight limp she had as she moved for the heavily reinforced stretcher on wheels that was meant for injured Spartans.

Before she sat down on it, her hand came up and hit the pressure release switch on the underside of the helmet, having it hiss as it unsealed and came off of her head. Shoulder length raven hair fell out of it, looking greasy and unkempt from weeks of fighting in it with no chance to clean up and shower. Her skin, abnormally pale, was covered in faint green bruises and barely healed pink cuts, as well as several scars that stood out as even paler lines across her shallow cheeks. The green eyes took it all in without the aid of the armor, perched on dark rims that showed just how little sleep the Spartan had gotten since Reach went up in flames. Thin lips pressed together in a thin line, no color present in them at all.

With a deep breath, she sucked in her first gulps of fresh air in what had been days, and sat down on the heavy trauma cart. One of the medics put his hand on her shoulder, pushing a little to give her the hint. "Ma'am, we need you to-"

The green orbs looked up, staring daggers through the man, and the hand quickly retreated, but she forced herself to do as he asked, and laid down on the cart. The medics began to push it, the hydraulics built into the cart making it easier to push the heavy armor and Spartan that wore it. Laying flat on her back, Morgan watched blankly as each fluorescent light passed over head, blinking in her vision as they went. It seemed like she had only just laid down when they were depositing her onto another bed, likely heavily reinforced as well. Six wouldn't have been surprised if they had just taken her to one of the platform's machine workshops and treated her there, like a Warthog that had thrown an axle.

Doctors swarmed into the room, taking vitals, hooking her armor into various wheeled stations, and trying to get an idea of her health. Several of the intravenous ports in her armor already had connections to her, and a bag full of saline was slotted into place immediately. Being one of the few Cat 2 personnel from the III program, Six at least got the luxury of being able to be treated. The rest of the IIIs didn't often get the benefit of a fully staffed medical facility after training, given that most of them were bound to die on their first deployment.

Her helmet was taken from her fingers, being set off to the side. Without the filtration of the helmet, she could smell the chemical stench that came with cleaning chemicals. She hated it. Wrinkling her nose up did little to stave it off, much to her displeasure.

There was little for Six to do as they pried the armor pieces off of her one at a time, leaving them sitting in the corner until one of the station's armorers came and dumped it into a cart, leaving with it. Now, Six was left only in the black undersuit that had been left behind. It would likely be stripped from her when the doctors had things more sorted out, but the medical ports would make things easier for now.

Time passed as the Spartan got lost in her thoughts, and without realizing it, all of the doctors had left, with the door clicking shut. It was like thunder to her enhanced hearing, and her eyes moved to the sole person that was left.

Clad in black fatigues with the eye and pyramid of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Six wanted to groan. Muscle memory wouldn't allow it, however, as her hand came up to her forehead in salute of the twin silver bars on his collar. While that meant they were the same rank, they didn't have the same authority. ONI spooks were people, Threes were tools. The man had a scar along his jaw that ran from just under his ear to the close cropped brown hair he had, a widow's peak being one of the only other defining features. ONI preferred its officers not stand out.

"Records show you were MIA on Reach when the planet turned to glass," he started, hands clasped behind his back as he moved to the foot of the bed.

"Aye, sir," she responded. "I was, as far as anybody knew. I completed my mission and, when left stranded, I looked for a way off world."

He raised an eyebrow. "And you found that through a captured Phantom that has more holes in it than a sponge?"

She simply shrugged. "Spartans make do, sir."

The corners of his mouth shifted slightly, more into a grimace than any kind of smile. "Noted. We've confiscated your helmet, and we'll be going through the video footage from the onboard cam. Most of the armor is combat ineffective at this point. You'll be issued another set and given new orders after you've gotten some rest."

Six realized that with the loss of her helmet cam footage, gone along with it was the footage of Noble Team, and all that she had to remember them by except for their tags. Those had likely been taken as well as the armorers went through the storage pouches on her armor. Then again, the only ones she'd been able to grab were Jorge's and Emile's. Carter had taken Kat's and kept them on him until the end, along with his own.

"How long until I'm released?" She asked.

"Unknown, B312, but be ready to move immediately should the need come up. ONI Handler on station will be Captain Greer, he'll contact you when standing orders come in for you. He'll also be your permanent handler. Not many Spartans made it off of Reach."

"Aye sir," she replied, and without another word, the ONI lieutenant left just as quickly as he had come in, leaving her alone in the room. Six sighed softly, putting her head against the pillow that had been put under her head as the doctors had gone over her. The heart monitor that had been left in the room beeped slowly, stuck at the resting heartbeat. It wouldn't change unless there was a spontaneous heart attack, and she doubted one of those was in her near future.

The door opened again after a few minutes, an aide in the support personnel jumpsuit coming in with a try of food and water. Six eyed what was on the tray, looking very much like the chalky nutribars that were found in MREs and survival packages. She detested the bars, but said nothing, unwilling to outwardly voice her displeasure at not having something that wasn't just as good at being a paper weight as it was at being food. It was calorie rich and worked well in the role it was given, but that didn't mean she liked it in any way.

Setting the tray across her lap, the aide didn't say anything. He didn't exactly need to. He didn't meet her eyes, either, simply turning on his heel and leaving with her eyes following his back the whole way. Seeing ONI afoot put people on edge, and this aide wasn't looking to attract any attention from the spooks if he could avoid it.

Alone again, Six picked up the bar and frowned. With a grimace, she put the bar to her lips and started eating. The bar was fragile enough that the bites she put on it would snap it with little pressure, even for normal humans. Halfway through the bar, she drank some of the water. It felt nice to have something to drink again after running on little to nothing for nearly a week.

The rest of the bar and water disappeared sooner than she would have liked, with Six setting the tray off to the side. She laid back against the bed that she had been slated to lay in, letting her head sink into the too soft pillow with a slowly deepening frown. She wasn't used to comfort, not after everything she had been through. She was normally lucky if she got to sleep outside of her armor, so a bed with a pillow and some time to actually rest and decompress was new, and in a sense, unwanted.

Too much time had passed since Reach had fallen, despite her having only left the planet behind a few hours before. Two months was a long time in an intergalactic war that they had been losing. Kat's words echoed in her mind like a bell tolling. _I know we're losing. I just want to know if we've lost._ The time she had alone in this room, with little more than her thoughts to keep her company, was something she was far from pleased with, despite it being some of the first downtime she'd had in a while.

She laid there, feeling weary beyond belief. Nearly eight years had passed since she had been pulled out of Beta and given over to the grinning skulls that controlled ONI. Most of that time, she hadn't been fighting aliens, rather ONI let some officer hold her leash and she became their own personal Grim Reaper, wiping out militia groups and cells virtually overnight, but no matter how many missions she went on, there was always another just around the corner. There was never any interaction, just another mission file and orders to deploy on this ship or that one. Always secretive and to the point. Six had long ago grown numb to the sensation of killing other Humans when the Covenant was ripping through the inner colonies every day.

She got access to Beta's files eventually, through less than legal means, and found that nearly every single Spartan she trained with was killed in the detonation of a Covenant refueling complex. It surprised her when she found that Kat had been assigned to Noble. It wasn't much, but another Beta surviving the meat grinder that had been Operation TORPEDO had comforted Six, let her feel some form of relief at having her friend, her sister, back. But, of course it wasn't to last. Less than a month after being reunited, Kat was dead, and the rest of Noble joined her.

Six longed for rest, an end to the fighting and the war. She hadn't expected to make it off Reach, much less to survive long enough to make it back to Earth. There was no reason she should have been able to make it off. The Covenant began to retreat after taking heavy losses in the shipbreaking yards, and Six had expected to just be glassed, but the beam never came. Had the Covenant just kept throwing themselves at her, there was no doubt she would have been overwhelmed and killed.

With so much on her mind, Six let herself sink further into the pillow, let the weight of everything cover her like a blanket as she finally gave in to the need to sleep. While it was doubtful she would feel rested when she woke, sleep would at least pass the time, and keep her mind from drowning in its thoughts.


	3. Stepping Off

Ten hours had passed as Noble Six slept the war away, but waking up only reminded her that Humanity was running out of time. She felt a sense of dread and discomfort as she realized that she has just burned some of that precious commodity. The logical part of her brain told her that, without sleep, she was useless anyway, but it didn't help much either way.

The room had been cleared of the medical equipment, remaining a stark white as she sat up and tried to shield her eyes from the powerful lighting. The only other thing in the room was a simple table next to her, a datapad resting on it with a black screen. Grabbing it and pressing her thumb to the screen, it powered on, immediately scanning her thumbprint. Pulling it higher and looking into a hole at the top of the screen, she flinched a little as a laser scanned her eye.

"Authorization: Sierra Bravo Three One Two." She spoke, clearly and slowly. The datapad chirped and the screen winked on. There would be little to nothing on it, save her new orders. With tracking software following her eyes as she scrolled through the orders, it registered that she had completed the reading, and wiped itself clean.

Her orders as of now were to armor up and prepare for something High Command was setting up. At least five stars would be speaking with her at some point today. Whether one person wore them all or five people had to share, they didn't say, just that someone would bring her when she was ready.

Setting it back on the table, she swung her legs off of the bed and stood. The tear in her side had been healed, but she could still feel a lingering sensation in the area where the injury had been. It wouldn't hamper her.

Going over her orders in her mind to commit them to memory, she made for the armory. A new set of Mjolnir had come up from Earth, a new model. If it was better than the Mark V, she'd trade it in in a heartbeat, especially given the damage to her suit, but the old components would be missed. If she could, she'd scavenge whatever pieces still worked.

The Mjolnir bodysuit was all that had been left on her. She'd need to shower at some point, but that could wait. Armor up, make sure it worked, then she could indulge herself. Form fitting to the point that little was left to the imagination, she walked through the ODP as if she was still in the armor. Modesty wasn't a useful virtue on the battlefield, and so it had been left behind.

Marines, both male and female, stared longer than they should have, but Six paid them no mind. The bright lights above almost gleamed against her dark hair, and her already pale complexion made her look as if she was a ghost. The thought of it would have made the Spartan laugh if it hadn't been in her job description.

The armory wasn't far, a few bulk heads and a set of stairs down a deck let her find the room where she'd be getting her new armor. "Armory" was written in blocky white letters, UNSC standard, and the word split apart with the doors it was painted on.

A burly marine with the high and tight that most marines and sailors wore was working at a table, and the doors opening caught his attention. Looking up, his jaw bunched and his eyes narrowed as he took her in.

Standing from what he had been working on, he sketched a salute at her that she returned. The pull in her side was still there, in the back of her mind, but it went away almost immediately. "Sierra B312, here for my armor."

His reply came out in a low drawl, an accent she hadn't heard yet. "Was wonderin' when you'd show up, Lieutenant." A muscle on the side of his head flexed as he must have grit his teeth, gesturing to scattered electronics on his table. "Your armor's been completely wrecked."

She stepped forward and looked over the myriad of tech that had been lain about. "Shield emitters were broken off, there were several hairline cracks in the chest plating and the right thigh, and plasma scoring or enough melting to compromise almost every piece of the armor. Even the optics were totally fried and I don't even know how you managed to do that." He threw his hands up, as if he was venting some of his frustration. "Don't even get me started on the power supply." Crossing his arms to prevent it from happening again, he looked over at her. "You know how expensive this gear is?"

Six's eyebrow shifted slightly as she stopped it from jumping up. "I think it worked rather well," She stated, and the Master Gunnery Sergeant's own eyebrows knitted together as he seemed to wonder whether she was being sarcastic or not.

His jaw bunched again and he sighed. "Yeah, yeah, well it was supposed to 'work rather well' for longer than it did, but it's already been made obsolete."

Gesturing to her, he started walking to a large locker that lay resting next to the wall, biometric scanners and a code pad set into the steel face. Six had some idea of what it could have been, but she would know for certain in due time.

"New series came up from Songnam just a few hours ago. They were already fashioning some specialized permutations based on existing Mark V gear. It won't be what you were working with before, but I think the tradeoff will be worth it if you wanna survive long enough to get the final product."

Pressing his hand to the biometric scanner and pressing in a passkey that was longer than his service number, the locker hissed open slowly, and a freshly painted set of Mjolnir armor came into view, the olive coloring gleaming in the light.

A new helmet was one of the first things she noticed. The protrusions above the visor had been shortened and rounded, matching the rest of the helmet instead of being silver or black. The visor remained a deep gold, reflecting her and the Master Gunnery Sergeant. The chest piece was rounded just as the helmet had been, most of the hard edges the Mark V armor had long gone in lieu of this more streamlined design. Missing was the rack for shotgun shells, but the collar that had protected her neck remained. A combat knife sat in a sheath along the hip, like an old sword scabbard. The shoulder pieces were still the bulky Commando variant, at least. She had felt more exposed than she wanted to when issued the Mark V with it's nearly non-existent shoulder pauldrons. Lastly, the TACPAD that had been sitting on the wrist was gone, leaving bare titanium.

The armorer next to her had his hands on his hips, having been silent as her eyes roved the armor. "Looks good, yeah? Mark VI, thicker plating, new helmet, armor set up to be harder to grab, shields have been upgraded to take at least 25% more punishment before failing." He pursed his lips as he looked back at her. "We'll have to do some fitting, they did a rush job on the measurements that they got sent by medical." He paused, wrinkling his nose. "First, get a shower, we could probably set you on the lines as is and the covies would drop from the stench alone."

Six wanted to decline, but the Gunny wouldn't let it slide, given how he was standing between her and the armor. She relented, barely, and nodded at him. Turning on her heel, she left and the doors slid closed, even as the armorer finally took a decent sized breath, waving at the air in front of his nose.

He stopped when the doors hissed open again, revealing the Spartan he had just dismissed.

"Does it come in blue?"

The Gunnery Sergeant looked at her, confusion crossing his face, before a hint of a grin passed over his chiseled features, and he nodded back at her. "Yeah, we'll do her up nice for you, Lieutenant," he said, shooing her away once more.

* * *

The hot water cascaded down Six's shoulders, the heavily muscled woman standing under the shower head in one of Cairo Station's showers with little regard for how hot it actually was. She could almost feel the dirt and grime coming off with the droplets, and the thin film of dirt in the water that pooled at her feet just before sinking into the drain showed a month of fighting and loss just as much as the dirt.

Hyper Lethal, Lone Wolf, Reaper, all just names given to her. Just like Noble. _We're a team. That lone wolf stuff stays behind._ Carter's words echoed in her mind. She had spent years doing just that, being alone, working on her own, watching her own back. Then she'd been thrown into the middle of Noble to take over a position that had been vacant only a month.

She had grown used to them watching her back, letting her feel like she could let her guard down for more than a few moments at a time. She had been overjoyed to see Kat again, but she had learned to be happy to see all of them when they separated, Six spending time with each member of Noble, always happy to come back together and see they hadn't all died while she'd been busy.

Then things had changed.

Jorge had died first, one of the mythical Spartan II class. It seemed even mountains could be broken with enough time, and he had sacrificed himself in an attempt at keeping Reach's mountains intact. His sacrifice had been in vain.

Kat went next, a single needle rifle shot had pierced her helmet. Their shields had been up, before the glassing nearby had shorted the shielding system, ionizing the air too much for the shields to be sustainable. In the darkness of the shelter they had hid in with terrified civilians, listening to the planet turn to glass above them, Noble had been silent, mourning yet another of their own. Six had sworn she heard Carter's anguish, but Noble's commander didn't make a sound in that bunker, and he never spoke a word about her again. Stripping her armor of the vital systems and burying her deep beneath the rubble of that building had cut Six like a knife.

Carter, cool under fire, always ready to lead the way into hell, had done just that. A scarab blocking their way would have burned all of them to ash with no weapons or way to take it down, until Carter had smashed his Pelican into it. Six's heart hurt with each passing loss.

Emile, behind the grinning skull etched into his visor, had gone down fighting hard. Run through with an energy sword as he dedicated himself to opening up a path for the Pillar of Autumn, his oversized knife had brought down the zealot that killed him. An eye for an eye seemed just like what Emile would have wanted. Moving up to the MAC gun and taking his place, she had stopped to look at him. Despite the skull scratched into his helmet and the reflective visor, Six could almost see the smile on the other Spartan's face.

As far as Six knew, Jun had gotten out, gotten Halsey to safety. With a VIP like that, any ships still in system would have opened up a hole to extract her. Of course, Six hadn't learned the finer points of his plan, given that she'd been in the process of fighting until she was killed in that ship yard.

But here she was. Something, or someone, had wanted her to get off of that dead world, had wanted her to carry on. In another world, maybe Six would have joined the Ghosts of Noble on the giant graveyard that Humanity's fortress had been made into.

The water shut off as Six's pale hand turned the knob, her thoughts clouded as much as the shower stall she stood in. She dressed quickly into a pair of fatigues, her armor bodysuit having been taken by another of the armorer's staff. It would be disposed of much like the ruined armor she had worn. It mattered not. Nothing useful remained except what ONI had taken from her helmet's cameras, and she'd never see those recordings again.

As she left, one of the mirrors caught her eye, and her stride slowed to a stop as she looked at her reflection. Her face had flushed red from the heat, and her green eyes stood out as they sought to look deep into the windows the mirror reflected, but Six couldn't see anything aside from the darkness in the center of those orbs.

A hand came up to touch her face in the mirror, and she nearly startled herself realizing it was her own, meeting the slightly foggy mirror as she tried to touch the woman that stared back at her.

A quiet curse. "Jorge must have rubbed off on me," she muttered to herself. The giant man, armored like a tank and carrying a heavy machine gun, had ironically been the softest of Noble team, willing to smile and crack jokes when the situation allowed. Despite being as close to Kat as she was, Jorge had probably been the one that imprinted on her the most. She had bonded with him more than the others, but that wasn't a surprise. Spartan IIIs tended to be bitter and reclusive, even antisocial, and while Noble had gotten around that, Jorge was a welcome inclusion.

During the Covenant's assault on Sword Base, a Covenant destroyer had been taken down over the lake not far from the base. She had watched it go down, pierced by a MAC round from orbit, and Jorge had clapped her on the back. "Nice work, by the way," he had said. Six felt the contact, even now, and shivered, tearing herself away from her memories. She wanted to ignore the pang of hurt that came with them.

Sweeping away from the memories, she hurriedly dressed and left the showers, wanting nothing more than to be encased in armor once more.

The bulkhead to the armory swished open and admitted the freshly cleaned Spartan, clad in Marine BDUs. The Master Gunnery Sergeant turned to look at her, having been hunched over his work table once more. Rising to his full height, he sat back against the table, his hands crossed over his chest.

"Armor's just about to come out of the paint fabricator, used the same color based on your old armor. Can't do anything about the visor without them sending up the parts for it, but figure it won't change all that much. I can order something up for you, but for now you're stuck with the bare gold. Tried to transfer some of the parts over to it as well, including the GPS and TACPAD, but not much was in any shape to be used with the Mark VI."

Pushing off from the table, he gestured to the secure locker the armor had come in, beckoning her closer. "Left the undersuit out for you to change into. Should stretch to fit you well enough. After that we'll measure armor placement and you'll be golden, Ma'am."

Six nodded and moved for the locker, already being opened by the armorer. Seeing the undersuit inside, she began to strip out of her clothes, already unbuttoning the fatigue pants even as he turned around.

He flinched at the sight, about to tell her to stop stripping in his armory, but he knew she'd need to remove the clothes to get into the undersuit. There was no slowing her down anyway. With a huff, he turned, looking through the viewport that stretched the length of the room. It showed the Earth, rotating slowly as the sun peeked around the edge of the planet.

Rustling behind him, a rubber sounding stretch, a few squeaks, and finally a hiss as the suit pressurized. Turning back to the now clothed Spartan, he gave her an irritated look. "Next time, maybe give a bit of warning?"

The Spartan merely raised an eyebrow. Modesty had been all but trained out of them, and with a repressed sex drive, she didn't see the point. Realizing she didn't quite get what he was getting at, he shook his head. "Alright, whatever, armor should be back in just a moment."

The door swished open again and a cart, pushed by two Marines, came in. Six could discern a quiet electronic whine, likely the cart's electric motor, meaning this was her armor. She watched as the armorer began to open the cart up and set individual pieces out, and took a moment to pull her shoulder length hair up into a tight bun. It still felt damp. No matter.

"Alright, let's start with the chest and arms, get them energized and make this easy. I'm not trying to pull something helping you play dress up." He started to armor her up, the chest plate and reactor going on first, and then Six holding her arms out in a T pose to let him have access to her. The armored pieces magnetized to each other as they went on, locking together with heavy duty bolting systems. Her arms got lighter as it went on, the armor connecting to itself as if putting a puzzle together.

She could have done it herself, given about half an hour. All Spartans were trained in armor maintenance and equipping. With the armorer's skilled hands, she was armored up in around ten, and it took a little bit longer to get the fitting right. Six began to jump and move, going through what looked like warm up exercises. Satisfied with the fit, she nodded at the armor, speaking again for the first time since leaving for her shower.

"Thanks for the help, makes things quicker."

The armorer gave her a half smile. "Gives me something to do. Being stationed over Earth has its perks, but it's not all that exciting. Polish this weapon, store that one, count ammo for the thousandth time."

Six gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, before she grabbed the new helmet and slid it on over her head. She smelled faint paint fumes, and another scent. She had no idea what it was, and the armorer must have sensed it.

"It's got that new car smell, Lieutenant. Savor it while you can, before it smells like sweat again." Six looked over at him, and all he saw was the golden tinged reflection of himself, before she turned her head a few times to work the seal into place properly. The armorer gestured to a set of twin prongs hanging from the ceiling. "Come on, we'll test the shielding and HUD and get you out of here. Word came down from brass that they want you in the control center for something or another."

Six nodded and followed him to the shield testing area. "Now, just hold still and..." He trailed off as the prongs spun up and discharged enough electricity to short her shielding, the blaring alarm in her helmet nearly deafening her. Pushing a few buttons turned the volume down a bit, before the blinking red shield bar began to fill up. With a few button presses on a console the armorer was at, her HUD fizzled out and began to come back, clearing up. The motion sensor began to blink and fill with red and yellow, before emptying, save for one yellow dot, and another closing from an upper level. Her handler, most likely.

"Alright, all done. You're free to go, Lieutenant." He said, even as the elevator door blinked green and hissed open behind him. He turned back to look at the black man that stepped out of the door way, clad in the dress whites that were only used for formal events anymore.

"You done with my girl here, Master Guns? I don't see any training wheels." He asked, white teeth shining behind a finely trimmed mustache, with a shadow of more hair covering his chin and part of his cheeks. Six was thrown off by how he worded it, but her chin pressed against the controls in her helmet. IFF indicator read as "Johnson, Avery J. Sergeant Major."

"Yeah, yeah, she's all yours, Johnson. Put a cork in it." Looking back to her, he put a bit of warning in his voice. "Just remember, armor's new, so take things slow."

The Sergeant Major, Johnson, grinned at the armorer. "Don't worry, I'll hold her hand."

The armorer rolled his eyes at Johnson, shaking his head even as Six moved with Johnson to step into the elevator he had ridden to the armory. "So, Johnson, when you gonna tell me how you made it back home in one piece?"

Johnson answered almost immediately. "Sorry Guns, classified." There was still the joking tone, but the way he had said it brokered no argument, and both had been in the Corps long enough to know not to push at it.

A scoff, "My ass! You can forget about those adjustments to your-" He was cut off as the elevator doors shut, putting an end to the conversation.

Johnson sniffed a bit, looking over at her. "He's in a particularly fine mood. Maybe Lord Hood didn't give him an invitation."

Six spoke up. "An invitation to what? If it was ONI related, they would have sent one of their own. You're Marine Corps, so what are you doing coming to get me?"

Johnson's eyes flashed, but he didn't betray anything else with the look. "Awards ceremony. They wanted you here because you were one of the last on Reach, one of the last to see the Pillar of Autumn." The black man turned to look out the window at Earth, and the other ODPs orbiting not far off. "Didn't get to thank you for your help, by the way. Figured you got burned to a crisp with the rest of the planet." His words had lost their jovial tone, something else having seeped into them. He seemed a bit more tired now, but said nothing else.

"One of the last to see it? The ship was crewed by a full complement. What happened?"

"Lost with almost all hands." He didn't elaborate.

Six's eyes narrowed behind her visor. She began to go through her HUD again, delving into his file. Surprisingly, it was filled with almost as much black ink as hers was. Closing out of it, she stood next to him. "The package?"

"Package was retrieved, turned over to the admiralty. It'll be there too. Last person who carried her..." He trailed off, before sighing. "He didn't make it. He's on the station somewhere, locked in cryo. They're working on bringing him back, but for now, he's out of the fight."

Six winced. She had heard that most of the IIs had been recalled to Reach, maybe it was one of them that had carried the package. "What was his number?"

Johnson looked over at her, eyes quizzical beneath the brim of his hat. "117. You know him personally?"

Six shook her head. "Not so much personally as professionally." He had been the only other Spartan classified Hyper Lethal. The Master Chief had been chosen to carry the package after her then, and that was likely the reason for it, but it mattered little. If he was considered to be dead or critically injured, then she'd be the one to take up the torch.

The elevator opened to a tramway, and the two walked to it in silence. Johnson looked through the window that showed the same view as before. With the tram beginning to move, Johnson changed the topic. "When I shipped out for basic, the Orbital Defense Grid was all theory, and politics. Now look, the Cairo is just one of three hundred geosync platforms. With the Athens and Malta, nothing's gonna make it through this battle cluster in one piece." He sounded almost proud of it. "Ships have been arriving all morning. Nobody's saying much, but I bet something big is about to happen."

Six turned at the sound of clapping and yellowing, slowly growing louder. Johnson turned a few moments later, spotting throngs of marines and a few camera drones hanging in the air. The doors hissed open and the yelling grew even louder.

Turning to Johnson, she tilted her helmet in disapproval. "Cameras aren't really my thing, Sergeant Major."

Johnson's smile came back. "Yeah? Well, folks need heroes, Lieutenant, gives 'em hope. Now smile, would ya? While we still got something to smile about."

Six shook her head, but a faint smile did creep onto her features. One that nobody would see past the golden visor, however. The door ahead of them, flanked by two other marines in dress whites, opened up. The two saluted, and the Spartan and her handler stepped through.

More clapping and yelling assaulted Six's ears, toned down a bit by her helmet. Marines and naval personnel all over the command center were cheering for them, for Six, but her eyes were riveted forward, stuck on the man that stood waiting for them.

Stepping forward, both Johnson and Six saluted Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood, the commander in chief of the UNSC. Hood saluted back, then dropped his hand. The two did likewise. Hood smiled a little bit, his face gaunt and wrinkled by stress and age.

"Sergeant Major, Lieutenant, it's good to have you both back." Another man, marked by a spot on his jaw that could have been a plasma burn or a birthmark, spoke to Hood in a whisper. His face tightened a bit, and he looked to a pedestal to their right. "Go ahead, Cortana."

An AI flared into view, naked save for the sprawling lines of code that traveled down her body. Her short hair was just as dark as the coding. "Another whisper, Sir. Near Io. We have probes en route."

Hood looked back to the two in front of him, nodding. "I apologize, but we're going to have to make this quick."

Cortana turned to look at them as well. "You look nice," She chirped, smiling at the pair.

"Thanks."

"Thank you."

Six and Johnson answered in unison, looking at each other as Cortana added more. "It's nice to see you again, Lieutenant," she chimed. Six looked back at her and nodded, not having really conversed with the AI on Reach before she had delivered her to the Pillar of Autumn.

Hood cleared his throat, getting their attention. He started with Johnson, the enlisted man straightening up as Hood turned his full attention on him. "Sergeant Major, the Colonial Cross is awarded for acts of singular daring and devotion." Turning and taking a medal from a waiting case, Hood walked forward to pin it on Johnson's chest. "For a soldier of the United Nations Space Command, we award you with this, in recognition of your continued service through the Fall of Reach and your return to us here in Sol." Johnson saluted, and Hood stepped back, returning it."

Six saw movement in the ranks of officers that had been standing across from her. A woman wearing the insignia of a naval Commander stepped forward and spun on her heel, looking remarkably like Cortana did. Six made no move to look over, her visor staring straight ahead.

Hood passed in front of Six, his voice ringing out again. "Commander Miranda Keyes. Your father's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service." Reaching back for another medal, this one staying in the box, Hood presented it to her. "His bravery in the face of impossible odds reflects great credit upon himself and the UNSC. The navy has lost one of its best."

Six heard a sniffle from the woman as she took it. That's who she was. Captain Keyes had died on the Pillar of Autumn, just as Johnson had said. To her credit, Keyes let little emotion out as she saluted Hood, and he returned it in kind.

Hood made moves to step in front of Six, and his mouth opened as if he was going to say something, when alarms began to blare, bathing them in red combat lighting. Six resisted the urge to move, but her stance loosened as the sound triggered the combat high.

Cortana, having been silent the entirety of the ceremony, turned back to them. "Slipspace ruptures. Directly off our battle cluster."

Hood wasted no time. "Show me."

The sound of foot steps rose as the command center began to clear out, most of them rushing to their posts. "Fifteen Covenant capital ships, holding position just outside of the kill zone." On the display in front of them, fleet composition began to show up, several CCS class cruisers and at least two CAS class assault carriers winked into existence.

Another voice chimed in, this one with a faint drawl to it. "This is Fleet Admiral Harper. We're engaging the enemy!" Harper's fleet began to fit into the estimates, eight Marathon class heavy cruisers and 67 Stalwart class light frigates were ready for battle.

Hood shut the idea down. "Negative Admiral, form a defensive perimeter around the cluster!" Turning back to the three still waiting, he gave them their orders. "Commander, get to your ship, link up with the fleet." She was gone, and Hood didn't miss a step. "Cortana, you have the MAC gun. Soon as they come in range, open up."

"Gladly."

Hood went back to looking at the displays and the status repeater. "Something's not right…" His musings were echoed by Six, even before he said it. "The fleet that destroyed Reach was fifty times this size."

"Sir!" An ops tech called out, getting Hood's attention. "Boarding craft! Lots of them!"

"They're going to try to take our MAC guns offline, give their capital ships a straight shot at Earth." Turning back to the Spartan, he gave her orders. "Lieutenant, defend this station!"

"Yes sir." She responded, turning to Johnson. "I need a weapon."

Johnson gave her the biggest grin she had seen yet. "Right this way."


	4. A Race Against Time

The command center for the Cairo Orbital Defense Platform, hanging in geosynchronous orbit over its namesake city, was abuzz with activity. A Halcyon class cruiser passed overhead, visible through the reinforced glass that made up the roof of the command center. Even now, before Noble Six and Johnson had made it through the doors they had entered the room through, they could already hear Admiral Hood's voice on the intercom giving orders.

Johnson was just in front of Six, leading her to one of the numerous ready racks placed throughout the station for just such an occasion. The UNSC had done everything to protect the location of Earth, but that didn't mean they would leave her without every possible line of defense.

A line of rifles slid out from one of the thick steel walls just outside of the command center, and Johnson grabbed one for himself before tossing one to Six. The Spartan caught it and began inspecting it in one smooth motion. A BR-55 wasn't something she normally used, but it would do. The heavy ammunition and the high velocity it fired at would be perfect for dealing with nearly anything that got in her way, and even those targets that it wasn't effective against, she'd still find a way. She always did. A few adjustments to the scope and a check of the magazine was all it took to get ready, the weapon already syncing to her HUD through connections in the grip and her palm. Despite the HUD saying her ammunition, and the ammo counter on the rifle reading full, she had been drilled to never trust technology blindly. Machines could be broken, but her mind could not.

The Spartan, hulking above the Marines that were moving by in full armor, looked back to Johnson. He had discarded his dress cap, instead grabbing a standard issue helmet and the upper body armor that the Marines rushing by wore. He decided against leg armor, but swung the battle rifle around to hang from a sling on his right shoulder.

Six was confused. Why would he grab a rifle just to- _Oh_. Johnson was dragging something out of one of the olive drab boxes that lay nearby. It was an M247 heavy machine gun on a tripod mount. Looking back at the Spartan, he gave her a grin that revealed the sparkling white teeth once more. "Walk softly and carry a big stick, ma'am."

Six snorted, the sound carrying through her helmet's speakers, but she nodded. She liked how Johnson did things, she decided. "Isn't that stick a little too big for you, Sergeant Major?"

Johnson turned and hefted the machine gun onto his shoulder. "Never too big of a stick in our line of work, Lieutenant." Sergeant Major Avery Johnson knew what the ladies liked.

Starting off down the stairs, Johnson was already getting information patched through to his headset integrated into the helmet. He would have preferred his patrol cap, but this would work. Covenant boarders were already trying to breech the next room. Several Marines were set up in firing positions already, some wearing dress whites and others in battle armor. Johnson grunted and swung the machine gun's tripod out, before setting it up to look down the stairs that led to the lower level and the door that stood in front of them. Six could already see the orange pinpoint on the door's center. The Covenant had brought up cutting torches to try and break through, but they wouldn't find anything here but lead.

Johnson gripped the stock for the machine gun, settling it into the crook of his shoulder and sighting down the barrel at the door, growing bright and brighter by the second. Six stood behind a pillar, her hand braced against it and the barrel resting in the L shape she made with her thumb.

The Spartan took a few moments to breathe and let the adrenaline start to flood into her systems, enhanced by her armor and some of her augmentations, before time seemed to slow down. The door exploded outward, traveling as if through water. Plasma rushed through the opening, even before the smoke cleared, and Johnson's machine gun opened up. Tracer fire spit through the smoke and dust, and already she could hear the cry of grunts being holed. Then she saw it.

The first line made it through the smoke, led by a blue armored Elite. She pulled the trigger, the rounds impacting on its shields with enough force to punch its head to the side and throw it off balance. It came back, bracing against any further fire, and ran for cover. Six tracked it without missing a beat. Two more bursts and the shielding system flared, before popping and failing. It warbled an order, pointing in her direction. Six switched targets, dropping a pair of grunts, and moved to get another shot on the Elite.

Pushing off of the upper level, she landed at a run, rifle held against her shoulder as she got eyes on the Elite once more. Its mandibles flared as it brought its plasma rifle up to fire, but three rounds from her battle rifle punched through its head and neck, silencing it.

"Above the door, they're on the landing!" One of the Marines called out. Six's visor rotated up and saw plasma fire already coming from above, jumping and grabbing the lip with one hand while her rifle's grip sat firm in the other. Poking her head and the barrel of the rifle over the lip, she swiveled the barrel and pulled the trigger once, twice, and again. Three grunts fell before the Elite leading them saw what had happened, warbling a battle cry and stomping forward. It lifted its hoof and attempted to cave her visor in, but Six released her grip on the edge and grabbed at the hoof, latching onto it as gravity carried her down.

The weight of a fully armored Spartan was too much for the Elite, and already being off balance meant it was dragged down with her. Six landed on her feet and released her hold on her rifle, grabbing the leg with both hands. She grunted and pulled, swinging the Elite into the wall with a sickening crack that left some purple blood on the wall. It warbled again, weaker, and she made sure it didn't make any other noises.

A few of the Marines looked a bit taken aback, and Johnson didn't miss a beat. "Move up, close the hole, clear it out! Don't let the lady do all the work, Marines!"

Johnson stood from the machine gun, leaving it behind as another Marine swung into place with a second, carrying ammo for it. This close to the command center, they'd need some form of defense. Six looked back at the black NCO leading his men forward and gave him a nod. He returned it, no words going between them but both understanding. She would be going off on her own from here on out, wreaking havoc on the boarders that didn't belong on the station.

Johnson called out another command, urging the Marines on and to the left as they pushed through the cleared doorway. Six hooked right, stepping over and around the corpses of several Grunts as her weapon settled into the crook of her shoulder as if it was made just for her.

Down the hallway, a trio of Grunts turned the corner, plasma pistols glowing a faint green in their claws. Six set off in a run, the stock of the rifle kicking against her as she let of bursts of fire. Two of the Grunts were down, with the third turning to spot Spartan closing with the elegance of a runaway freight train, and then everything went dark for the last Grunt when was run over and left for dead, the Spartan not losing much speed as she turned the corner into the room that they had just left. A staircase took her up two flights, where a Marine had already gone down under a hail of plasma fire.

Six grimaced. More would fall the longer this assault went on. She slid the rifle over her shoulder and felt it connect to the mag locks securely, before reaching down and grabbing the SMG he had went down with. Checking to make sure it was loaded, she pushed on ahead into the next room, where a Marine on another tripod mounted gun was spraying rounds into an atrium filled with more Covenant.

Six disregarded the stairs that were in the next room, running towards the crew served weapon and vaulting through the open window to the right of it. She heard one of the Marines yell something even as her boots clanged loudly against the steel deck. She came up from her crouch, a blue armored Elite filling her vision with a battle cry.

It was on her before she could stand back up, bringing its weapon arm back to bludgeon her with the plasma rifle glowing hot in its hand, but Six was faster. Her hand latched onto the skinny wrist and kept it away, even as she jammed the SMG into its midsection, just inside of the shield system, and held the trigger down. The arm slacked up immediately as she cored the scaley alien, letting it drop limply as she turned without a beat to spray a pair of Grunts.

The magazine, big though it was, ran dry swiftly as she continued to mow down more Covenant. They were pouring out of a side hatch, one that she began making moves for after clearing them out, when a crackle of static pierced through her helmet.

A feminine voice spoke up. "Noble Six, it's a pleasure working with you again." The voice seemed cheery, despite the carnage raging across the station. "There are numerous boarding pods hitting the station, but you'll be altering course to cut another one off. Marines in the next sector are already engaging one, but there are others that are hitting before Marine presence can defend against them."

"Cortana?" Six asked aloud, but already she could see a previously locked door turn green as it unlocked and slid open.

"Yes, of course!" The voice responded without missing a beat. "Now, if you'll kindly step on it, I'd appreciate it."

The channel cut out as a set of lights embedded along the bottoms of the walls began to blink in sequence, leading her wherever Cortana needed the Spartan the most. Six set off at a run, grabbing a few more magazines from a wall mounted rack. She would need them.

* * *

Cortana mused to herself momentarily. Noble Six was an unexpected surprise, but given the Master Chief's injuries and Hood having deployed the rest of Spartan Blue Team to the surface of Earth in preparation for the day this fleet that would eventually invade, Six was going to be a breath of fresh air that was sorely needed.

The Spartan III was just as good as John, if not better. Cortana wasn't happy that her Spartan had been injured as he had, but there was little else she could do other than monitor him with a subroutine as everything came crashing down around Humanity's homeworld.

The AI couldn't explain it, but she had a feeling that Noble Six would be what would make or break the Battle of Earth. Maybe even more.

* * *

Noble Six followed the lights from one corridor to another, being led to another locked bulkhead. "Cortana?" She called out, slowing down from her run.

The door unlocked and slid open without a response, and Six narrowed her eyes slightly as she ramped her speed back up, two submachine guns clenched in her hands with a group of magazines locked to her thigh magnetically. Her HUD showed that both were full, and she had plenty of ammunition in reserve to deal with whatever came her way. If she ran out, the battle rifle hanging across her back would do the job just as well.

The door opened completely, with the Spartan hurtling through and scanning the room, the muzzles of the SMGs going out to the edge of her vision. A Pelican dropship covered most of her sight, but her motion tracker showed several red dots on the other side. The chittering of Grunts and the warble of an Elite sounded over her breathing. Dropping the SMGs to her waist, she let them latch onto her thighs and unslung the battle rifle.

A flick of a switch and the burst function was gone, replaced by the semiautomatic firing mode. Edging around the Pelican let her see the group of aliens in front of her, with little cover. Sighting in on one of the grunts, she started to pull the trigger back, and the barrel of the rifle bucked.

The weapon hadn't fired, instead a three fingered hand had wrapped around it and Six's golden visor shifted to meet the dark eyes of the red armored Elite Major that was in her face. She didn't waste any time letting go of the rifle to roll away from it. It warbled a challenge and started to spray plasma fire at her, even as she came up with the SMGs in her hands, already pulling the triggers and returning fire.

The Elite's shields flared up, flashing a bright blue, as some of the plasma splashed over her shields and made the golden lattice spring to life. Her shield bar dropped to half, blurting a warning into her ears. She grit her teeth and one of the SMGs continued to pour fire on the Elite, while the other encouraged the screaming Grunts to take cover, even as the Spartan sought some of her own.

The steel behind her and the Pelican began to take hits and deform slightly as the plasma fire took its toll. Six, met with a click as the two bullet hoses ran empty, cursed and ejected the magazines, before slamming the two against her legs and settling new magazines into them. The bolts racked forward loudly, just as the Elite came out of hiding, shields regenerated just as her own filled back up. Setting one of the SMGs down, she tore a captured plasma grenade from her belt and lobbed it at the red armored alien. It warbled in alarm and disappeared behind the Pelican once more, but it must not have been fast enough, as an alien scream came from that direction.

Moving to find the Grunts once more, she hosed them down without any issues, before recovering her battle rifle from where it had fallen at the beginning of the fight. Off to the side, she saw the red armored Elite draped over one of the Pelican's landing struts, missing one of its legs. Confident her job here was through, she looked to the glass windows where their boarding craft had attached.

Deep inside, she saw it lay empty, and she couldn't disengage it without decompressing the room. Instead, she took a moment to look out at the other platforms in the Cairo's cluster. The Athens and Malta hung suspended in space, several UNSC ships bracketing them to stop as many boarders as they could wit htheir point defense. Then something seemed to happen. Tiny specs began to flutter away from one of the platforms, the Malta, based on her HUD. Six's eyes narrowed as she heard chatter come over the comms net.

What was likely a Marine began to cheer. "They're retreating form the Malta! We've pushed them off! I think we've wo-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, and Six flinched as she saw the platform begin to change through her reflection. Secondary explosions began to go up all through the central platform, before traveling up the length of the gun and blossoming into a larger explosion. The Malta broke apart even as more secondaries went off through the now free floating pieces.

A sigh went through the Spartan. Another platform gone, and another uncountable cost in human lives. "Cortana, where do you want me next?"

The AI responded, sounding troubled. "Continue following the lights, you'll be moving through an armory, so grab what you need, and then you'll be reinforcing a group of Marines having trouble clearing out dug in Covenant in another small hangar bay."

"Copy," Six closed the channel as she began to move, setting off at a jog. The armory wasn't far from here, a few halls and another atrium had her going back to where she had started her morning. Even before the door opened, she heard the booming report of a shotgun, followed by insults hurled in an accent that was slowly becoming familiar.

The armory door's opened even as another Elite was gutted by the heavy 8 gauge shot. "Get the hell out of my armory, Split-lip!"

The sound of more boots on metal had the armorer from that morning whirling on Six, shotgun held tightly against his shoulder as he saw her. The muzzle dropped almost immediately, recognizing the golden visor that stared back at him. "Picked a helluva time to pay me another visit, Lieutenant. You need those training wheels after all?"

Six couldn't help but smile behind the visor. "No training wheels, but I could afford some heavier firepower. Finally getting that excitement you wanted, Master Guns?"

The armorer grinned at her, refilling the shotgun with ammunition as she came closer, before tossing it to her. She caught it by the pump and readjusted her grip, before sliding it horizontally along the small of her back. More locks grabbed it and she glanced at the table before spying a box of shells, ripping it open and sliding the shells into ammunition holders on her armor.

"You know, now that you mention it, I think I'd have been happy recounting the ammo. After all this I'll need to do a recount anyway. Damned Covies, inconveniencing us like this."

The Spartan shook her head. It would amaze some that the two of them could joke like this while bodies were littering the decking, but for them it was just another day on the job.

The armorer, grabbing another shotgun from the racks in the armory and sliding a heavy magnum into his thigh holster, moved to her side. "Armory's been mostly cleared out, save for any leftover ammunition, and I won't do any good guarding a few bullets and shells. Need some company?"

Six nodded, jerking her head towards the stairwell that led below the armory. "Only if you can keep up, Master Guns." She said, already setting off to the stairs and deep into the shaded area below."

"Yes ma'am."

The two made it down into the shadows, and Six's visor automatically adjusted for the low light, a night vision overlay coming to life and giving most objects a neon green outline. One of the outlines flickered, and Six had the SMG that sat in her left hand up and firing. The bullets impacted where the light was bent, and a purple mist began to coat the wall even as the Elite it belonged to fell to the ground without a sound. Brown armor covered his body and Six frowned, even as she saw movement to her left. She had the SMG up but it was knocked down as another cloaked Elite ambushed her. The fighting caused the cloaking field to shimmer and fail with the impacts Six made on him with her open right hand, punching and denting the armor, but it wouldn't be enough. A plasma pistol held in its hand began to charge up. A charged shot at this range would drain her shields, if not eat through her armor.

It suddenly stopped resisting as a boom went through the enclosed space, the Elite being blown off of her by the force of a shotgun blast at close range. Six looked up at the armorer behind her, who nodded without a word. Six nodded back and retrieved the SMG from the floor.

She was the first through the door, coming face to face with another Elite, this one alert from the fire it had heard. It warbled a cry and Six dropped low. The armorer was ready, quick on the draw and just as accurate as she was at this range, and the Elite's chest armor puckered up, driving into its chest and knocking it off its feet. Six launched from her crouched position and ran forward, her foot landing on the Elite's head to make sure it had been finished off, even as she swung her SMG up to hose down a gaggle of Grunts that were startled by her appearance.

Six's mind went back to the destruction of the Malta, and even before she got to the door, she heard more chatter in her ear. Another Marine. "They're leaving the Athens now..."

The bulkhead doors opened, and Six saw another detonation through the large windows, plasma and tracer fire crisscrossing over it as the battle in the next room raged on. She turned back to the armorer. "Go left, link up with Marines, I'll go right and cut off the reinforcements.

The armorer moved without a moment's delay, boots clanging on the steel catwalk. Even as Six began to engage the Covenant forces in the area, Hood and Cortana came into her ear again.

"Cortana, assessment!"

The AI sounded lost in thought. "That explosion came from inside the Athens, same as the Malta. The Covenant must have brought something with them. A bomb."

Hood didn't miss a beat. "Then they sure as hell brought one here. Noble Six? Find it."

"Yes sir." Six wasted no time vaulting over the railing and down to the floor. With the heavy presence still streaming from the breaching pod, she would have to work fast. Elites and Grunts alike fell under her onslaught as the tide slowly changed with the addition of a Spartan.

It didn't take long to empty the breaching pod and finish off what remained, but Six would have no time to take a breather with Cortana working just as fast as Six had been. "Lieutenant, I've found the bomb. You'll be taking a monorail transport near the umbilical holding the Frigate _In Amber Clad_. Commander Keyes is pinned down and could use some assistance when you pass through."

"Roger, Cortana. Guide me there," she replied, the channel cutting out once more. Six could already feel the cleanliness leaving her, sweat being wicked away by her bodysuit and the interior of her helmet. Her breathing was barely above normal, despite the running and gunning that her day had turned into.

Turning back to the Marines that were already clearing the middle of the room of bodies, she saw the armorer giving orders. "Guns, you stay here, I'll move faster on my own."

He nodded, sketching a salute at her. "Roger that, Ma'am, pleasure working with you. Stay safe!"

Six only nodded, turning on her heel and bolting as Cortana began to light up her path. The intercom continued to sound off status reports as Cortana directed the defenders to where they would be needed most. Several different sections had been taken, the Covenant trying to flood the station with invaders in a way that would allow them to deploy their bomb without issues. Boots rang on steel as she pushed for more speed.

Passing into a hallway that was less a deck and more a skybridge, she looked to her right. A UNSC cruiser passed by, automated defense systems spewing tracer fire as it was harassed by Covenant Seraphs and Banshees. The Cairo's own defense suite opened up, and with Cortana's enhanced fire control, the cruiser was cleared of enemy ships.

A door ahead opened, a Marine swinging around the corner and throwing himself into cover. His head turned and his weapon was up before he could realize who was coming. "A Spartan?" He almost seemed confused by her presence.

Six blew past him, the shotgun in her hands hooked against the crook of her shoulder already as she turned another corner, one where Johnson and Keyes, as well as several other personnel in matching dress whites were huddled into cover. Six's eyes narrowed as she took in another form, one tucked into a crevice where shadow fell over the black fatigues she knew so well. A silver bird insignia sat on his collar, glinting even in the shadow, but Six said nothing out of the way. IFF registered his neural interface signal as Greer, Adam C., Captain. Her handler had made himself known after all.

The ONI officer looked at her, catching her eyes even through the visor. Six was spared interaction with him when Keyes, a smoking SMG in her hands, reloaded and called out to Six. "I was almost back on board when _they_ showed up." She jerked her head off in the direction of the end of the hall, where two Elite Rangers were firing down at them, a red armored Major leading a gaggle of Grunts down the hall slowly with a hail of suppressing fire.

Six peeked around the corner, a green plasma bolt passing by her visor as she ducked back and, in one smooth motion, unhooked a grenade from her belt and side armed it hard enough to take a Grunt off its feet. It squealed and the Elite leading it roared for it to get back up before it saw the grenade. There wasn't enough time to move away, however, and the squad was scattered. The Elite survived, albeit dazed and with broken shields. The two Rangers ducked, their own weapons needing to vent charge.

"Now! Push 'em, Marines!" Johnson yelled, swinging out of cover with a battle rifle belching rounds at the dropped Elite, finishing it off quickly. A pair of naval personnel and another Marine with full armor was on his heels, continuing to suppress the Ranger pair, who rapidly backed into the boarding umbilical.

Johnson stopped next to the corner, pressing a few buttons on the controls and shutting it, before venting the umbilical into space. The Rangers were thrown out, and while it wouldn't be their death sentence, it would clear the way to return to the _In Amber Clad_.

Keyes stood from where she had been hunkered down. "Thanks, Lieutenant. I owe you one."

The Spartan shook her head. "Just doing my job, ma'am." Turning to look over at Johnson, she called to him. "Can you get her to the ship without me holding your hand again?"

Johnson's face soured, before turning into a smirk as he remembered the quip from earlier that morning. It was as if he hadn't been expecting it. Few expected any of the Spartans to have any humor, even those that had worked with them before. "Yeah, yeah, I'll take care of her. Get outta here."

Six went left, towards the monorail station, while Johnson and the rest went right, into the umbilical and the frigate beyond. The monorail station was fortunately clear. Jogging into the tram that sat waiting, Six checked her ammunition. "Cortana, get me moving." The tram shuddered, and started taking her back towards the center of the station. "The Covenant have breached the fire control center, that's where they took the bomb."

"How can I defuse it?" Six asked

"You don't. I just need you to get me close enough that I can make contact with the detonator."

Six snorted. Another day in the life of a Spartan. Fight through impossible odds in a race against time. If she managed to do it, it was a good day. If she didn't, it wouldn't be her problem anymore. The tram picked up speed, before slowing down a few moments later. It was a short trip, but one made faster by cutting through the station.

It slowed to a stop, the doors opening to a room already filled with downed or dying Marines. One, laying by the door, looked up at her, blood traveling down his head from a gash. "They blew right through us, wasn't even a fight."

Six would have kneeled, helped the man, done _something_ , but there wasn't much time, and so she pushed past him, only giving more basis to the view that Spartans were just machines.

Chatter went up in her ears as Cortana spoke over the command channel, playing it for Six more as a matter of gauging the battle than anything. "Registering all hostile vessels inside the kill zone. Thirteen cruisers, two assault carriers. I'm going loud!"

The deck rumbled beneath her boots as the MAC gun went off, proving that despite having lost the fire control center, Cortana was making sure the Covenant saw the Cairo as very much a threat, preventing the Covenant from getting an easy shot at Earth.

Fleet Admiral Harper's voice came next. "Those carriers are trying to bully their way through! They're dead set on the Cairo!" Six grimaced inside of her helmet as she tried to push herself through another bulkhead, the fire control center getting closer, and the bomb with it.

Six grit her teeth as the channel switched, Cortana's voice sounding in her ear, less urgent and more concerned. "There are quite a few Elites in there. You might want to get creative."

Six didn't say anything, merely racking the slide on her shotgun as she ensured it was fully loaded. She took a deep breath, steadying her breathing, and then stomped her foot. Watching her on camera, Cortana understood, the door opening and letting Six come face to face with the Elite that had been patrolling.

The next room showed a massive window, with the MAC gun just off to the left, and then the void filled with a Covenant assault carrier rocketing past. "Sir! The carrier just completely ignored us! They blew through the Malta's debris field and headed straight for Earth!"

Mandibles flared in surprise as Six rushed forward, jamming the barrel of the shotgun into its waist and pulling the trigger. She wasted no time, already turning and racking the slide as she sighted on a pair of Grunts. Pulling the trigger at this distance let the pellets spread out a bit, and both went down with several new holes to breathe through.

Down the corridor on either side of the loading rail, Six saw three more Elites pop out of cover, one of them clad in silver armor that shined brightly under the fluorescent lamps that filled the fire control center with light. Six, recognizing the color as a legitimate threat, tore two grenades from her belt, throwing them both down the corridor.

The Elites took cover, and even before she heard the muffled thump of the grenades going off, she heard the snap-crackle of an energy sword being ignited. Another grenade was flung down the corridor as Six went right, clambering up a container and onto an upper level. She racked the shotgun and let it dangle in one hand as she pulled an SMG off of her thigh. Lighting up the cover with enough fire to keep the Elites pinned, she rapidly closed on them.

Knowing it was suicide to let her closer, two of them swung out and returned fire with their plasma rifles. Several bolts splashed against Six's chest, dropping her shields almost to empty as they blared a warning in her ears, the HUD pulsing red in her vision.

Uttering a curse, Six discarded the SMG as she slammed into cover, several more bolts flying past as they kept her pinned in. She glanced at her motion tracker, and saw a red dot closing faster than she'd be able to deal with.

Her shield began to go back up, and she took every second she could get from it, pushing the barrel of the shotgun out and pulling the trigger. It bucked in her arms, and she pulled it back, going to rack the slide once more. Pulling out with a full shield bar, she came face to face with the silver armored Ultra. She went to do what she had done earlier, shoving the barrel at the Elite and going to pull the trigger, but she was a hair too slow. The energy sword, crackling with ionized air, swung up and cut the first 6 inches off of the barrel, nearly taking Six's hand with it as the Spartan immediately let go and pushed forward.

The sword, still high in the air, was unable to come down as Six tackled the Elite, her elbow knocking its head to the side. It warbled and tried to throw a punch, bringing the sword back down behind her, but unable to connect it to her armor as the Spartan grabbed the sword arm by the wrist and squeezed with all her might. The bones in its wrist ground against each other before a loud crack was heard, the sword automatically deactivating as it fell to the decking.

The Elite roared in pain as it went for its sidearm, a plasma pistol on its thigh. Six was faster, grabbing the second SMG from her other thigh, and jamming it against the Elite's side before pressing the trigger down. It warbled again, before it, too, fell silent.

Six saw one of them coming up the stairs ahead, a plasma rifle in each hand. It started hurling fire in her direction before she snatched the plasma pistol from the dead Ultra. Charging it, she started to run at the Elite. One bolt hit her, then another, before the charge up was ready. She released the trigger, the blazing green bolt hitting the Elite in the chest and shorting its shields. Dropping it and swinging the battle rifle from where it had been left forgotten on her back, she brought the rifle up with one hand and pulled the trigger, the burst hitting the Elite in the chest and taking it off its feet.

There was one left now, tucked into cover on the opposite side of the bomb, a heavily armored shape wrought with spikes and the purple plating the Covenant seemed to love so much. Six replaced the battle rifle, dropping it and grabbing one of the plasma rifles from the ground, taking her remaining SMG into her free hand. With a moment of what might have been prayer or thinking her life choices through, she swung out of her own cover and began the final push.

The Elite heard her boots clanging down the stairs, closing far too fast to be safe for either of them, and popped out. His plasma rifle was already firing as he swung out, and Six pressed her own triggers down as far as they would go. The SMG barking in her left hand and the plasma rifle whining in the other stitched holes and burn marks over the container the Elite had chosen for cover. His shield system flared as some of the rounds hit home, and Six's own shielding glowed an angry gold as they traded fire.

The Elite's shields popped, just as Six's SMG ran dry. The plasma rifle still had some heat endurance left, but it was about to fail her as well. The Elite, spotting the weapon sputtering in her hands, took a moment to sight in and get accurate fire off. The Elite was going to die, be it from the bomb going off or the injuries it sustained, but it refused to allow the Demon to take the Great Journey from him.

Six, with no other options, planted her right foot and went into a slide. Her momentum carried her into a rotation, flinging the empty SMG at the Elite as hard as she could. The weapon flew true, impacting the Elite's chest plate with enough force to dent it as Six slid her knife from the scabbard that had been hanging unused at her hip. The Elite, off balance from the hit he had taken, didn't stand a chance as Six threw the knife. It flipped end over end through the air, and as Spartan time took over, Six's perception of the world around her slowed to a crawl. Green eyes watched, praying to a god she had long ago stopped believing in, as the knife sunk into the Elite's unarmored neck. As quickly as time had slowed to a crawl, it began its rapid sprint forward once more.

Standing there, her breathing finally having gone up with the events of the battle, Six was given no time to rest. "Lieutenant!" A voice called out to her, and she whirled around to find Cortana standing on a pedestal nearby, looking irritated and impatient with the Spartan's theatrics. "Me. Inside your head. Now!" Six ran to the pedestal, unsure of how she was supposed to take the AI into her armor, when Cortana groaned. "Hand!"

With little other context, Six put her hand out to Cortana and the AI huffed even as she put her own much smaller hand on the Spartan's. Her form dematerialized, sinking into Six's armor. The cold jolt of an AI making contact was like a pitcher of ice water had been poured directly into Six's mind, causing eyes to squint closed in the helmet and fight against the feeling that overtook her. Cortana sounded urgent as Six struggled with the addition of another form in her mind, voice coming from seemingly everywhere. "Six, you need to get me to that bomb!"

Six shook her head, ignoring the wave of nausea that had come with it all, and stumbled to the bomb, slapping a flashing icon that seemed to be making the activation timer whine louder and louder, before cutting out with the deactivation of the bomb.

The Spartan slumped forward, holding tightly to the spikes as she grit her teeth. That would take some getting used to. Cortana, still in her head, gave a synthetic whistle. "That was awfully close." Six, always curious, couldn't help but start to voice her question, when Cortana cut her off. "Don't ask. You don't even wanna know."

Another voice entered the command channel, sounding in Six's ears now that the bomb was finished off. "Cairo, this is _In Amber Clad_ , the second carrier's shields are down and I'm in position to engage."

"Copy, _In Amber Clad_ , vectoring _Forward Unto Dawn_ and _Ode to Autumn_ to engage."

Six looked back at the bomb, as if wordlessly telling it to stay put, and got her bearings as she walked to the reinforced glass that made up the window in the fire control center. The Covenant carrier that remained in space was below the station, just like Hood said. With the Cairo unable to reorient to fire on it, other measures had to be taken. Three UNSC frigates, led by Keyes' own frigate, descended on the carrier like a trio of hungry sharks onto a whale. The carrier was bleeding, and they smelled the blood in the water.

The _In Amber Clad_ fired first, the round shooting out at a fraction of the speed of light and biting deep into the carrier's flank, but not out the other side. One of the bright blue engine nacelles at the rear of the carrier flared several times, before dying and going dark. The other two frigates fired as well, one after the other. The carrier ate both shots, with one of the MAC rounds tumbling out the other side and towards the planet's atmosphere. Several seconds passed, before the frigates fired again. The rounds made contact in a smaller area this time, gouging a massive hole in the carrier's armor that belched fire from broken plasma lines, killing some of the carrier's offensive power as well as wounding it.

One of the frigates chose a different route for the third volley, dozens of missile bay doors opened, their payloads shifting into position. Seconds passed before missiles likely numbering over a hundred, if not more, rocketed from their frigates in clouds of smoke before reorienting on the crippled carrier in front of them.

With the massive hole torn in its armor, there was little stopping them as they hurtled towards the vulnerable interior. The Covenant's point defense laser system managed to stop some of the missiles, but well over half of them made it through and dove into the carrier's interior, detonating and blowing the carrier's aft side into a mangled mess that ballooned with secondary explosions. The ship was overtaken by dozens of orange detonations, before something critical was struck and the ship's midsection flashed white, the reactor blowing and ripping the carrier in two. Secondaries continued going off in the now separate aft and prow sections, with the ship tumbling through space, a tomb for those that had been inside of it.

Noble Six nodded in satisfaction as she saw the assault carrier drift off. It didn't do those that had been killed at Reach justice, but it was a start. "Noble Six, orders have come in for you." Cortana's voice broke the Spartan away from her musings. "Cairo is repelling its borders. You're to be transferred to _In Amber Clad_ and move to conduct operations on the surface of Earth. I'll be going with you, by the way, so I'll stay stored in your armor, since it already has an AI chip embedded in it." What sounded like amusement seeped into Cortana's synthesized voice. "It's roomy in here, I like what you've done with the place."

Six, unsure about Cortana's presence and what it meant for continued operations, was hesitant. If another situation like what had happened upon Cortana entering her armor happened again, or if it happened in a battle, Six could possibly be killed by it, or heavily injured. It wasn't something the Spartan was happy to think about. On the other hand, some company might be nice.

Cortana went on as Six left the fire control center, guiding her to one of the hangars. "A Pelican is waiting to ferry you to the _In Amber Clad_ , you can rearm there. Given transition time to the ship and then to the surface, you're looking at about an hour. A message also came through while you were sight seeing. Your handler, I presume?"

The message came up even as Cortana was talking, making itself small enough so as not to impose on her field of vision. Greer had indeed sent it through, and the eye and pyramid insignia proved it if nothing else. Even while Six read through it, Cortana hummed, making the Spartan paranoid. "Do you always snoop on other people's mail?"

"Only when it interests me, Noble Six. Besides, we're partners now, what's yours is mine and all that."

"Only if you promise not to do any redecorating," Six came back, and while she said it as a joke, the Spartan harbored at least some paranoia over whether Cortana might actually decide to 'redecorate'.

"Of course not. You've also been given the option to take another callsign, given you're not exactly number six anymore. Your handler left the option up to you. Would you like for me to respond with anything? You can also meet up with him on the ship, given he's been transferred to it as well to keep an eye on you for ONI."

Six scoffed, but thinking about it, she didn't know. She was back to being a lone wolf, and with the dissolution of Noble after the Fall of Reach, she should have taken something else. None of that really mattered, though. She would keep it, if only to keep Noble's torch burning a little longer. She wouldn't let them be forgotten.

"Noble Six will serve just fine, Cortana."


	5. Alley-oop

The Pelican's back ramp hissed open, hydraulics working to let the heavy steel ramp down to the floor in some manner resembling safe. The Spartan inside, still holding onto the support hold above, released her grip and stepped out of the Pelican onto the decking for one of _In Amber Clad_ 's hangars.

Unlike the Charon class of light frigates, the Stalwart class was geared more towards a mix of planetary defense and fleet defense, rather than the more combat focused layout found on the Charon class.

With Warthogs rolling about to get prepped for deployment to the surface, Six made her way through the throng of activity pre-planetfall. The bulkhead door that opened at the end of the hangar was filled with something that she had been hoping to avoid. More black fatigues and that same tired glare.

Six's hand was up to her visor in a blur, saluting the ONI operative that was apparently going to be holding her leash like those that had done before. Six wasn't happy about it by any means, but the spooks didn't exactly get the meaning of the words 'consent', much less whatever the Spartans thought on it all.

The handler, Captain Greer, frowned before returning the salute. "Noble Six, welcome back to the fight. I apologize that I didn't have the chance to contact you prior to the attack on the Cairo, but neither war nor time stops."

Six dropped her hand to her side. "No, sir."

Greer opened his mouth, before he noticed something behind Six. Several Marines were lined up, waiting to exit the hangar, but none of them would dare to tell the Spartan to move, much less the spook. Shutting it, he turned on his heel and started moving. Six followed without a word.

"Now, Cortana has keyed me in on the events at the end of the assault, as well as your choice to keep your callsign." He slowed down, holding his arm out a bit to gesture her forward, which she did. Looking up at her, he stopped. "I'm sorry for the loss of Noble." He added, sounding as if he was actually concerned.

As he started to walk again, the golden visor following him, he sighed. "Damned shame we lost so many on Reach. Most of the IIs and what IIIs were planet side were killed. We know a few of the IIs managed to get off world, but the IIIs were all killed save for you and Jun-A266."

Six's heart skipped a beat at the fact that Jun had survived, but any questions she had were cut off as he held up a hand, stopping at a door that slid open, gesturing her inside first.

As he entered and closed – then locked – the door behind him, he turned the lights on. It was an office, a sparsely furnished room meant for the ship's XO, with a desk and communications panel. A small bed sat in the corner, made to UNSC specifications. Sitting heavily in the office chair, he leaned back. "I'd offer you a seat, but nothing here will hold you. Now, I understand you have a few questions, but those will have to wait."

Six reached up to unhook her helmet, the suit's seals hissing as she did, before hooking the helmet to her belt. A few strands of hair had come loose from the tight bun, which she tucked away. "At least answer a few for me, Captain?"

Greer seemed to mull it over. "I have an idea of what they might be, survival of Sierra A266 being the top?" Six nodded. "He's been reassigned, classified Code BLACK. Only people who know what it is wear more stars put together than you'd see on a clear night. You would have been reassigned to Headhunter status, had we gotten you any earlier, but given the Covenant are about to start stepping all over Earth, that's not exactly an open job listing anymore. Besides, with Cortana traveling with you, we can't risk solo deployment like you normally do. Too risky, even for you."

A voice came from Six's helmet speakers, one that cleared it's synthetic throat. "You don't give her enough credit, Captain," it said, almost disapproving.

Greer's eyes flashed, and he laced his fingers together. "Cortana, how nice of you to join us. I shouldn't be surprised you were listening in. On another note, please refrain from looking too much into A266's current status, however curious you may be. Noble Six doesn't exactly need any more eyes on her, given her unexpected survival after Reach fell, and I most certainly don't need any more stars looking through my file."

Cortana huffed, sounding disappointed at being told to keep her nose out of where it didn't belong. "You know me too well, but fine, I'll play ball if only to keep Six from having to deal with ONI more than she already does."

Greer's expression relaxed a little, leaving him looking tired. "That's all I ask for. Now," looking back to Six, he gestured to her armor. "With your new armor, you should stand an even better chance of survival on the ground, far better than the Mark V. A member of Sword team, deployed on Reach, was testing the prototype Mark VI armor before it fell, and a surviving Spartan II on loan to Songnam's SPECWAR division tested the armor you're wearing right now. They didn't point out any issues with it, but keep note of how it performs in battle, for future tuning. That means you too, Cortana."

Six nodded, looking down at the armor. It had performed well during the assault on the Cairo, and there was little she could complain about for now, but with extended use like the conditions on Reach, it would begin to break down eventually. "I'll make notes, don't worry. Hopefully I won't get stranded on another planet again," she muttered.

Greer only shrugged. "At least if you get stranded on Earth, there won't be any lack of Human contact. We would have evacuated earlier, but given Winter Contingency was only called an hour ago, we're struggling to get people to shelters. You'll be spending time on the surface, near where the Carrier touched down." Grabbing a data pad from the desk, it lit up to show the area she'd be operating in.

Even as she took it and looked over the topography, cams from the surface, and whatever satellites could drag up, Greer went on. "Landed in New Mombasa, posted up around one of the space elevators, and started deploying forces from a grav lift. Why they chose here, I have no idea, but they look like they're in it for the long haul."

"I doubt there's more than enough to take on the planet stashed in just one carrier. Hood said something about total fleet size on Reach numbered several magnitudes more than this. One of their first vessels was a _super carrier_ , Captain. The numbers they deployed from it alone dwarfed this fleet."

"You and ONI are saying the same thing. I don't know, and they haven't deemed fit to tell me more as of now, but we don't have much time to debate it." Almost as if reinforcing his point, the deck shuddered beneath their feet. The _In Amber Clad_ had breached the atmosphere, the deck settling down not long after. "Get geared up and ready to deploy. You'll be going in with Sergeant Major Johnson and a flight of Pelicans. We've detected heavy presence on the surface and the 405th Marine Infantry Division as well as some elements of the 105th Shock Troops Division already attached to the _In Amber Clad_ will be deploying to assist you in your mission. Dismissed, Noble Six."

Six nodded and swung her helmet up and onto her head, moving it left and right to make sure the seals had caught properly. Turning on her heel, she left the Captain's office.

* * *

The Pelican dropped from the _In Amber Clad_ 's hangar bay, released as if being forced by a mother bird to learn how to fly. Fortunately for Six and the Marines inside, this baby bird was already well versed in the art of flight.

Six stood at the rear, watching the frigate shrink in the distance as the pelican picked up speed and took up its position on the left side of a three bird formation. Even now, radio chatter was being picked up and filtered out on the fly by Cortana, save for the open channel between _In Amber Clad_ and the Pelican, dubbed Kilo 3-3, with Kilo 1-3 and 2-3 filled with more Marines and Helljumpers respectively.

Cortana carried on a conversation even while sorting through Six's armor, tweaking this and that for optimal performance. "The message just repeats: Regret, Regret, Regret."

Commander Keyes, nestled snugly within the armored bridge on her frigate, mused aloud. "Catchy, any idea what it means?"

Sergeant Major Johnson, between the pilots in the front, was never one to leave out a quip if he could help it. "Dear Humanity, we _regret_ being alien bastards. We _regret_ coming to Earth, and we most _definitely_ regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy ass fleet!"

A chorus of "ooh-rah" went up from the Marines listening in, and Six smiled beneath her helmet. Spartans worked as a well oiled machine, never ones to indulge in the bravado and candor that Marines seemed to care for so much. The II generation, Six had little knowledge of, with Jorge having been the only one she'd known personally, but the IIIs always seemed a little more bitter, a little more angry, with each new fight. It had felt like some had a death wish, others a furious rage, like Emile. Six had never been one to succumb to the near psychotic frenzy that some of the IIIs would work themselves into. Most of all, Six was just looking for a way to make it through the next fight, the next planetfall, the next suicide mission. A childhood had been taken from her before it could even start. She'd be damned if she let them – be they Covenant or otherwise – take any more. With Noble gone, she had less and less to lose.

Cortana sounded amused. "Regret is a name, Sergeant Major. The name of one of the Covenant's religious leaders. A Prophet. He's on that carrier, and he's calling for help."

Another voice cut in, one she hadn't heard. "Immediate: Grid kilo two-three is hot. Recommend mission abort."

"Roger, recon." Static. "It's your call, Sarge."

Six glanced over her shoulder just in time to lock eyes with Johnson. "We're going in. Get tactical, Marines!" The Marines in the Pelican's bay, otherwise known as a 'blood tray' due to the blood that would routinely get hosed out of it, began to check weapons and gear, making sure a grenade was stowed or a pouch fixed shut. One even had a rosary gripped in white knuckled fingers, kissing it and whispering something she couldn't pick up over the engine wash.

Six looked back out at the streets below, seeing a trio of Warthog FAV's speeding down an elevated freeway, one launching off a ramp and into the air. One of the Marines, a passenger with a rocket launcher, pumped his fist and yelled something. Six shook her head slightly, Hood's voice filtering in her ear. Static filled the channel from interference, ionization from the fleet battle wreaking havoc on long range comms.

"Noble Six, get aboard that carrier and secure the Prophet of Regret. This is the only place on Earth the Covenant decided to land. That Prophet is going to tell us why."

The channel cut out as soon as it had opened, and Six heard something that gave her pause. "Thirty seconds out. Stand by to… whoa." Six turned and saw it, something that sent a chill up her spine.

Looking around Johnson, she could clearly see a Scarab walker stomp out into the freeway they had flown over. Six moved, even as the Scarab's main gun fired. The pilots of Kilo 3-3 evaded the main gun, giving Six some air time even as she slapped at the bay door release. The ramp came up and hissed closed as the sound of rapid fire plasma batteries hit her ears. An explosion to her right as one of the other Pelicans took fire, the whine of engines rising before disappearing, and then an impact.

Six was thrown from the front of the bay to the back, her heavy armor denting the bay door and pushing it out of its sealed position. Several inches of daylight made it in, even as the Pelican flipped over and landed on its back, skidding across a building before hurtling over the edge.

Six hovered in the air for several seconds, an eternity in Spartan time, and then the decking rose up to meet her. "Noble Six!" Cortana called out to the Spartan, even as her vision went dark.

Six felt herself coming to, the tangy taste of copper in her mouth. Struggling to get up, she shook her head, already running her tongue across her teeth. Nothing was loose or missing, so she had lucked out. Cortana's voice sounded in her ear. "Noble Six? Blink if you can hear me, Lieutenant."

The Spartan shook her head again, huffing as Cortana teased her. "You try getting thrown about like a toy and then you can tease, Cortana." Her voice was a deadpan, but she could almost see Cortana's smirk.

There wasn't much time at all to get her wits about her. Sergeant Johnson, already up and armed, stood atop the Pelican. "Shake it off, Marines! Clear the crash site! Go, go, go!"

The Marines began to move, at least one looking as if he was stumbling more than running. Six reached up to Johnson, who smiled at her, but didn't take the hand. "Appreciate it, Lieutenant." In his arms, he cradled a sniper rifle, handing it off to her as he dug in the wreckage for more weapons.

"Please, call me Six." She responded, taking the rifle and racking the bolt to check for damage as Johnson pulled himself out with a battle rifle and an SMG, throwing the rifle to Six.

"Yes ma'am," he replied, checking the SMG even as the pair jogged away from the Pelican. Covenant would be all over it soon, either by dint of seeing the bird go down or being vectored there by the crew on the Scarab.

Six heard gunfire, even before turning into the corridor that led down to a plaza. The screams of dying Grunts filled the air, along with Marines whooping. If the Covenant didn't know they were here before, the whole place was alert now. Six looked up, spotting a ledge, and turned to Johnson. "Secure the square, I'll provide cover. This place is going to be a sniper's dream."

Johnson snorted. "Aye aye, ma'am, buzzards'll be looking for easy kills. We'll take the building overlooking the square, set up until evac comes."

Six nodded and hooked the rifle to her back, even as Johnson jogged off after his Marines. Leaping up, Six grabbed an overhang, pulling herself along it to get to the archway that covered the bottom of the corridor, before jumping up and onto a higher vantage point. Gunfire was already sounding off in the square, Marines peeking out over the lip of the building they had secured. They worked quick.

Set up with a view of the majority of the battlespace, Six sighted in on a red armored Elite that came over a roof. His hand went up as he gave an order, and Six removed it for him for his troubles. Grunts on the ground below began to squeal and run before getting cut down. When Six sighted in again, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and dove. Above her, where her head had been, a purple beam passed through the air and left a trail of haze in its wake. Six followed it quickly and spotted her first rival.

A Jackal sniper, wearing a bright purple magnifier sight over its right eye, adjusted its head. The leathery alien, looking like a vulture more than an alien, chittered something and went to sight back in before another high caliber round left Six's rifle, piercing the monocular sight and exiting the back of the Jackal's skull.

Johnson's voice sounded again as footsteps scurried around beneath her. "Jackals in the courtyard! Fire and adjust, Marines!"

Looking down to the corridor they had come from, Six spotted them. Several Jackals and a blue armored Elite came storming out of the corridor, even as Six set her sniper rifle down and switched to the battle rifle. The Jackals wisely began to hook their shields together and advance under command of the Elite. It was a solid tactic, using an impenetrable shield wall. Only problem with it was that the read and sides were left unguarded. Of course, Six was nothing if not pragmatic.

Yanking the pin from one of her grenades, Six lobbed it down at the feet of the aliens, with the Elite noticing far too late was it was. The grenade detonated and the line was thrown in different directions. Several were killed, but the outliers and the Elite were left dazed, but alive. Six didn't have time to sight in on them, as the Marines were already on the job, bursts of fire putting the invaders down with a sense of finality.

The beat of wings got Six's attention. "Johnson, Drones inbound. Dig in!"

"Roger that!" Even across the courtyard, Six could hear Johnson bellowing orders to the Marines. "Get inside, Drones coming in! Heading over the rooftops!"

Six tucked herself back against the wall, battle rifle held at the ready for the drones that would be flying in on her right. With a deep breath, she listened, the sound of gunfire falling away as the wings grew louder, a shrill buzz that filled her ears.

All the Marines had dug in, weapons ready, and when the Drones flew in, a hail of fire went up. Several Drones were knocked out of the sky in an instant. Most survived, scattering. One Drone went in for the kill, dive bombing the Marine position and landing right on top of one of them. The Drone quickly began tearing at the Marine, the man's screams echoing off of the walls. Another Marine finished him, but Six's overlay, reading the nearby Marine IFFs, saw one of them flat line. Across the plaza, still firing at what Drones were left, Six could see the red blood contrasting heavily with the offwhite instacrete construction. Six bit the inside of her cheek, gunning down a few more Drones before the square grew quiet again.

Six reloaded the sniper rifle and her battle rifle, watching from afar as the fallen Marine's comrades dragged him into the building's interior to strip him of his ammunition and tags. The dead had no need for either. They returned to the outside, looking slightly more grim as the whine of a Phantom's drives sounded in the skies above.

Six called out, even as she grabbed the sniper rifle. "Phantom's coming, scatter!" She leapt from the building and landed on her feet, tucking and rolling to come up into a sprint for the lower level of the building. The Phantom, having settled in above, started opening up with its three plasma batteries, trailing Six the whole way. Even through the Mjolnir, she could feel the heat at her back. It petered off as she made it into the building, but the ledge above took some of the hits and sagged under the heat.

"Stay in cover! It'll drop its load off and book it!" Johnson crowed, tucked into cover next to her. The two other Marines had split up, sitting on either side of the wall nearest the Phantom, ready for the troops it dropped off to try and storm the lower level and stairway.

The sound of the Phantom's drives whining intensified and it lifted away, leaving the worbling of the Elites and its cadre. The first one to move in, a red armored Elite, advanced with its plasma rifle up, only to be met with a fusilade of gunfire against its back. It turned in surprise as its shields popped and fizzled out, the armor it wore failing against the bullets that riddled it. The two Marines whooped even as a trio of Grunts waddled up the steps and started suppressing them.

Six popped from her own cover and lit the Grunts up, kicking them back down the stairs where their compatriots were advancing before the Grunts were even dead. An Elite coming up at the tail end lost its balance and Six took a running leap, coming down right on top of the Elite and crushing it under her boots as her battle rifle came up in one hand, putting rounds into what few Grunts were left.

One of the Marines watched as she shook her boots off. "Damn, Lieutenant. Got a little personal there."

Six looked up at him, snorting. "All of them are personal to me, Marine." She stepped back out into the sunlight, cradling her battle rifle as she felt the weight of the sniper rifle resting on her back. She could hear two of them speaking together in whispers, with Johnson loudly telling them she could hear every word they said. A whimper came and the Marines didn't say anything else.

Overhead, Six heard as Human made engines roared, a Pelican sliding into view for a moment. The pilot sounded anxious. "My girl's a little too big for that courtyard, Sergeant, I see a good LZ on the other side of these buildings. I'll meet you there, over." The engines spooled up, and the Pelican lifted off, ready to get in position for pickup.

"Copy that." He cut the comm, yelling and gesturing to a pair of heavy iron gates set in the wall the direction the Pelican had flown off to. "Someone get a satchel on that gate!"

One of the Marines began to dig through his pack, producing a large explosive satchel. When he went to go to the door, an impact hit it from the other side, knocking dust loose. The Marine paused, startled, even as Johnson looked over his shoulder with a grimace. Another impact, a third, and the fourth was all it took for the gate to give way. Two Hunters stomped out of the dust.

Giant eel colonies clad in suits of armor thick enough for starships with a fuel rod cannon and heavy shield in play meant that it was not a dull day. Six grabbed the satchel from the Marine even as he yelled out what had stomped out. Johnson grabbed him, dragging him back as Six launched from the ledge and onto the street, the Hunters hunkering down behind their shields as their fuel rod guns began to glow green.

"Stand back, Marines! Let the Lieutenant show you how it's done!"

Six continued her charge at the Hunters, both of them close enough that they'd have to avoid each other to get to her. With the battle rifle in her hand, she peppered them with pot shots, one of the Hunters lifting it's shield. Six had been waiting for it, and launched herself forward and onto the shield. Pushing off with her legs, she felt the Hunter groan, the subsonic rumbling something she felt more than heard. Flying through the air, she dropped the satchel and grabbed the ledge of the building that she had propelled herself towards.

Even as she pulled herself up and threw herself to the other side of the roof, where she had just been dangling was vaporized by the fuel rod gun. "Blow the charge, now!" She yelled into her helmet.

An instant passed before she heard the dull thump of the charge going off, echoing back and forth off the buildings. Johnson came out from the interior, looking in her direction before giving her a thumbs up. "Got 'em both, ma'am!"

While the Marines came out, Johnson carrying the discarded sniper rifle once more, Cortana's voice cut into her ear. "Second squad, this is Cortana. What's your status, over?"

A voice with a southern drawl came over, coughing. "We're operational ma'am… barely. Our pilots didn't make it."

"Find a hole, stay put. We'll come to you. Out."

Below, the Marines passed through the broken gate, with Johnson yelling up to her and showing her the rifle. She held her hand out and the burly man grunted before throwing the rifle up to her. Heavy though it was, he got it high enough for her to grab it. She nodded her thanks, with Johnson returning it as he, too, passed underneath.

Six followed their progress, leaping from building to building. She had just gotten to the final building, overlooking a damaged freeway overpass that had collapsed, when a bright purple beam lanced out. One of the Marines cursed in Spanish before tucking into cover. "Only thing worse than Jackals is a Jackal with a sniper rifle!"

Six ignored him, already sighting in. The bright monocular scope once again gave the Jackal away, with Six putting a hole in the shooter's chest with practiced ease, watching as it fell from its perch.

In the open area, the Pelican from before lowered itself to the ground, more Marines stomping off of it and posting up across the way. Johnson and the two survivors from the crash began to go as well when Keyes spoke up for the first time since the mission started.

"Sergeant Major, I need you on that bird."

"Ma'am?"

"My Pelicans are going to start airlifting armor and reinforcements into the city. They'll need an escort that isn't afraid of a little hostile ground fire."

"Understood, I'll keep an eye on 'em." Johnson turned back to look at Six as she climbed down from the buildings. "Six? Good luck out there."

"You too, Sergeant Major. Try not to get shot down again, yeah?"

Johnson narrowed his eyes, shaking his head as he turned and climbed into the Pelican. She could hear him muttering something about jokes, even as he took his spot in the bay. The Pelican lifted off, kicking up dust and concrete as the Marines began to advance with Six hot on their heels. Six turned the next corner first, a beam lancing past her once again. She didn't stop moving when the Marines shrunk behind the corner, she would be shot if she stopped. Taking pot shots in the direction of the shooter with her battle rifle, the sniper rifle once again relegated to her back, she slammed into cover and poked the rifle out again.

Another beam lanced out, and she swung out, sighting into the scope and spotting the sniper again. A burst was all it took. She had no idea why all of them wore the bright pink sights. They were just putting bulls eyes on themselves.

The Spartan waved the Marines forward, already spotting another Jackal that she dispatched. One of the Marines yelled from below. "Drones! Up high!" Six's head whipped to the left, where a half dozen Drones had entered the battle. Two of them went down quickly under fire from the Marines, but the other four made a beeline for Six, pelting her with plasma pistol fire. With little cover, Six had to trust the shields as she returned fire, strafing to the left in an attempt to get off the roof. Several shots hit her, draining her shields completely just as she got to the edge.

Dropping to her side, she heard her armor scrape against the rooftop as she grabbed the ledge and rolled off. Swinging around, she put her feet against the wall and dropped down, landing next to a Marine that nearly yelled as she startled him. Six ignored him, already firing up at the Drones that flew over the rooftop, the last ones getting dropped as her shields popped again before beginning to recharge.

Ejecting the spent magazine from her battle rifle, another was snatched from one of her ammo pouches and sent home with ease, the bolt snapping forward with a satisfying click as the ammo counter read full again. Six looked at the marine, giving him a reassuring nod, even as she side stepped from behind the wall and back into the open. A maze of alleyways and buildings separated them from where second squad's distress beacon was set up. It would be a bloodbath if the UNSC force was pinned down, and while Six had no doubts she'd make it through eventually, the Marines wouldn't be so lucky.

Four gathered behind her. "Gather together, leap from cover to cover, watch each other's back as you move. We'll get through this, Marines." Even as she gave her little speech, Cortana overlaid satellite imagery over her HUD, letting it fade into the ground as a path began to assert itself across the faded concrete that made up alley ways. A yellow line flashed twice and Six set off, the Marines moving behind her at a combat pace with weapons up.

More snipers would be hanging around if she knew the Covenant at all. Even now, she could see the light of another monocular scope tucked into the shadows between two buildings, the Jackal sniper scanning the area. Six took the sniper rifle from her back and sighted in, catching the Jackal just as she was spotted, the high powered rifle bucking against her shoulder and putting the Jackal on the ground before the shell that had been ejected even pinged off the dusty ground.

Six dumped the magazine from the sniper rifle and put another one in, her last. She passed the rifle off to one of the Marines, who slung it over his back. He didn't seem to want to switch to it when he had a perfectly good SMG for close quarters work like this. She didn't blame him.

Even as she moved into the alleyways, it was easy to fall back into the lone wolf mentality. Six took pains to keep an eye on her motion tracker, making sure the yellow dots were always close by. She would have moved faster on her own, but in an environment like this they would be slaughtered if the Covenant got the drop on them. She had killed too many Humans during this war, and if she had to throw away time to get just a few more out, maybe her mountain of sins would slowly fade away.

She shook her head. She couldn't get distracted by the past at a time like this. Moving to the position where the Jackal had been dropped, Six peered around the corner. A box truck sat still, surrounded by Grunts and an Elite. The Grunts were waddling around, using their forearms to walk like gorillas while the Elite seemed on edge, plasma rifle at the ready. Six turned back to the Marines, giving a few hand signals, and half of them peeled off and sprinted across the road and into the shade of the buildings.

The Elite must have seen the displacement, ordering the Grunts forward and stalking up behind them. Six waited for the Grunts to pass, and sprinted from cover. Her boots pounded across the cracked ground and she tucked her shoulder low even as plasma splashed across it when the Elite's surprised warble was cut off. Her shoulder impacted dead center and launched the Elite into the wall where the shielding popped and left it dazed. Gunfire was rattling off of the walls as the Marines caught the Grunts in a vicious crossfire, shredding the diminutive aliens. With the Elite on the ground struggling to raise his rifle, Six pulled the trigger on her battle rifle twice and the Elite's arm fell limp.

One of the Marines, an Australian, whistled. "If we survive this war, maybe you should look to sports, ma'am," he called to her as the rest of the marines resumed their formation.

Six shook her head, but her helmet speakers activated. "Then what will the rest of you meat heads do?" She watched the look on the Marine's face turn to a grin.

"Aye, a good point. I'll leave the war to you then."

Six heard plasma fire up ahead, something that sounded like a heavy plasma emplacement like the door gunners that had been seen on some Phantoms lately. She made a hand sign to advance and they followed, already back to business.

Tucked behind some rubble, a Covenant gun team led by one of those silver armored Elites was blasting the front face of a building, faded letters reading "Hotel Zanzibar" over the front. Weak return fire would come at points, but almost immediately would be pushed back by the Covenant. If they went too much longer without help, the Covenant would just melt the building on top of them.

Six gestured for the Marines to focus fire on the Elite, sliding a grenade out of her armor. She pulled the pin, the ping of the topper flying off sounding as she counted to three in her head. With the grenade cooked just right, she let it fly.

It was still in the air when it exploded, sending shrapnel in every direction. The Elite had been within spitting distance of it when the grenade blew him off his feet missing all of his mandibles and one of his eyes. The Elite clawed at his face with what was likely a scream when the Marines began to gun down the gun crews. The plasma slacking off let the Marines in the building start firing as well, one of them putting the Elite out of its misery.

Six started to jog forward as an ODST missing his helmet stepped into the sunlight, face covered in dust with a bandaged head wound. IFF read as Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker. "Lieutenant, damned good to see you," he said, sticking his hand out. Noble Six took it and shook.

"Status, Gunny."

"Crash site's on the other side of this hotel, ma'am. Covenant are crawling all over it. Follow me, but stay out of sight. Hotel lost power and Covies have been trying to move in since the fight started."

Six took point, passing by an ODST that was prone with a machine gun that had likely been scavenged from the Pelican. Down the hallway, with Six's visor software activating, she could see shadows playing against the far wall. Something came around the corner, a red armored Elite leading a group of Grunts. Before Six got any shots off, the machine gun on the ground opened up, chattering away as it began to rip the Grunts apart. The Elite was lucky enough to dive into cover, but with the Grunts down, all Six had to do was advance and finish the job.

With ODSTs in tow and the Marines from before, Six pushed down the hall with her gun up. Speaking with the helmet speakers off, her eyes watched the motion tracker for more movement. "Cortana, call for transport. We don't need to be moving in large groups, and some of these men could be used elsewhere."

"Already on it, Six. A Pelican is dropping off a Warthog a few hundred meters to the north, they'll be on station momentarily, with the Warthog traveling along the ground."

Six continued to move, and the darkness gave way as she looked to the right and saw a very angry Elite clutching a plasma grenade that flared brightly as it was activated.

Without thinking, she dropped her rifle and grabbed the Elite. One hand went to its chest harness and the other to its wrist. "Grenade!" She yelled, and the Marines scattered, save for two of the ODSTs. The Elite fought the Spartan, even as the grenade got brighter and brighter. Right before it blew, one of the ODSTs, Gunnery Sergeant Stacker, shoved himself between the two, a magnum in his head. The magnum was shoved into the Elite's mouth, the slide racking back three times as the Marine fired.

The Elite went limp in Six's hands and dropped the grenade. Dumping the body on top of it, Six grabbed the Gunny by his chest plate and began to run. Other Marines were already in cover even as Six carried the him away from the grenade as it detonated, the sound muffled by the Elite's corpse that had shielded them from the blast.

Six, confident that they were in the clear, sighed and released the Marine. "Thanks for the help, Gunny," she said.

The Marine grinned, his helmet long gone. "Consider us even, ma'am."

Now, with the corridor cleared, the group stepped back out into the sunlight. A Phantom was dropping troops off across a thin bridge that spanned across a highway. One of the Elites spotted them coming out and shouted an order that had the Phantom alter its heading. The three plasma batteries on the bottom began to open up, spraying the Marine force with plasma as Six shouted for them to retreat back into the corridor.

Another sound picked up in volume, and four Anvil missiles slammed into the Phantom's side, ripping holes in the fuselage and hitting something critical. With a stream of secondary detonations going off, the Phantom listed heavily and lost altitude, smashing side first into the sand near the remains of Kilo 2-3, the Pelican the Helljumpers had come in on.

The Marines, hearing the explosion, gave a whoop and charged back out into the open, trading fire with the Covenant even as the throaty growl of a Warthog sounded, rolling up with a Marine on the rear gun hammering the Covenant from the street with high caliber rounds meant to take down aircraft. The gun mulched most of the Covenant, with the rest of the Marines finishing off what was left. A Pelican came from the right, hovering where the Phantom had been, with empty slots on the missile racks from where it had shot down the Phantom.

Six turned to look at the marines with her. "Gunny, you and your boys take these Marines and get on that bird, you can be used elsewhere."

Stacker, already telling the Marines to get moving, looked back at Six. "Yes ma'am, good luck out there. If that Scarab is still stomping around, I don't wanna meet it again."

With Stacker and the rest rushing off to the waiting Pelican, Six dropped down to the street and waved to the Marines. The gunner stepped around the gun mount and slid into the passenger seat as the driver honked.

"Good to have you, Spartan!" He yelled out, and Six jogged to the rear to swing herself up onto the gun. Pulling the charging handle back, she got ready for a rough ride.

* * *

Six hung off the back of the Warthog, feeling like somehow sand had gotten into her armor after the wild push through two beaches, a few miles of tunnel, and half of the Covenant's invasion force. The reinforced windshield was melted and cracked in places, all of the wheels were missing their hub caps, and the gun shield had been broken off and left somewhere in the sand. One of the Marines, the passenger, sat dead in his seat with a mangled hole for a chest after several needler rounds had hit and supercombined, blowing him apart. The driver, bleeding from having taken a jump that landed badly, nursed his head. A dent in the dashboard showed where his helmet had made contact. Were it not for the helmet, his egg would have been scrambled.

Lights passed over the Hog as it drove through the ruined tunnels that led towards New Mombasa, abandoned vehicles scattered across the road where their drivers had left them. Cortana, having been silent for a bit, finally spoke up, startling the on edge Six. She wasn't used to Cortana yet.

"I've been analyzing Covenant tactical chatter. They're surprised, confused, almost like they didn't expect us to be here. I don't mean like you or me, I mean Humanity, on Earth. Odd, I know, but it does help explain why they came here in such low numbers."

"Then they're bound to come back with even more soon," Six muttered.

"That may be, Six, but I'd bet they'll take some time. If they have one of their Prophets here, and he's calling for reinforcements, the rest of the Covenant will drop like a hammer on Earth."

"How long do you think we'll have?"

"I don't know. A week, a month, it's anyone's guess. If we get on that carrier and capture Regret, then we'll be able to track their movements if they don't cut us from their battle net." Cortana paused. "Before we returned to Earth – the Master Chief and I, - we came across a station guarded by hundreds of ships. Through a lot of daring and some crazy scheming, we managed to stop it, but with everything that's going on now..." She sighed. "It leads me to believe that maybe that fleet was the one supposed to head here. If that many ships had found Earth at once..."

She trailed off. Six didn't need her to explain the rest to understand what that meant. A fleet that large finding Earth would mean the end of the war. Up ahead, sunlight came in through the ceiling of the tunnel, and suddenly a Warthog launched out of it to land in the pile of rubble. The Marine driving struggled to control it, jerking the wheel to the left.

He was too slow, a massive green beam of plasma shooting into the cave and hitting the other Warthog, destroying it. Six gripped the mount for the M41, ready to open fire even though it wouldn't do anything more than spitballs would to a Scarab's armor. Fortunately, she didn't have to. The Scarab stomped past, cutting the sunlight off even as they passed underneath it. Six released a breath she had been holding for too long.

Up ahead, the tunnel curved and went up, leading to the bridge connecting New and Old Mombasa, as well as leading to the space elevator where the Covenant carrier had been hanging in the air since planetfall.

Six had no idea how they planned to get her on that carrier, or how she would go about taking on the complement of soldiers left on board, but she'd figure something out. Spartans always did.


	6. Bug Hunting

The sound of the Warthog's ailing engine rattled along the tunnel walls, the exit to the old tunnels just up ahead. Exiting the tunnel would take them straight to the island hub of New Mombasa. The Marine driving looked wary, having glanced over at what must have been a friend assigned to his unit. Marines lived and died daily in this war, and everybody had lost somebody by this point, but it never got easier.

Noble Six's radio crackled to life as Marine transmissions made it through, a female Marine speaking. "-basa. Repeat, this is Marine unit Assassin 2-3, stationed on New Mombasa 105 East. Our perimeter has been broken by a heavy walker, new model of Scarab. We've failed to halt or slow its movement and it's moving into the New Mombasa area now. All Marine forces in New Mombasa be ready for arrival. Assassin 2-3 out."

Six leaned forward, one arm holding onto the gun mount of the Warthog as it trundled along, the other tapping the Marine driver. He jumped, startled. "Put the pedal down, Marine. We need to move."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

The Warthog's speed increased, the rattling that had been heard in the engine bay turning into a repetitive knocking sound. This Hog wouldn't be making it much further. Then again, it wouldn't need to.

The sunlight filtering into the tunnel system hit the Warthog and its occupants harshly as they passed into the open air. Six's visor automatically polarized as her eyes adjusted to the light after being shrouded in the artificial light of the tunnels. Up ahead, a toll station sat in ruins, save for a spot where a pair of Marines crouched or sat in the shade, watching the back of the continuously advancing Scarab.

They turned their heads, seeing the Warthog and the Spartan that manned the gun. The Marine driver slowed to a stop right next to them, with Six hopping from the gunner's station while the driver sat and breathed a sigh of what could have been relief at the stop or simply exhaustion at the events of the day.

One of the Marines sat off to the side, breathing heavily, and the other was crouched behind a thin barrier. Her eyes met Six's, although she couldn't tell. It was the Marine that had just radioed in. "It blew right through us, ma'am. 50 cal, rockets, didn't even scratch the paint on that big bastard."

Six almost replied, but the sound of engine wash cut her off. Looking up, Six was greeted with the tail end of a Pelican, an M808 Scorpion Main Battle Tank dangling form the heavy duty mag locks on the Pelican's rear fuselage. The Pelican lowered itself to the ground slowly, before hovering and dumping the tank with an unceremonious thud. In the darkened blood tray, a flash of orange came alive before dimming to red, and then back into nothingness.

From the Pelican dropped the armored up form of Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, clutching a cigar in one hand and a battle rifle slung across his shoulder. Six looked at the Marines that had been stationed at the toll station, jerking her head at Johnson. They got the signal, and even the Marine that had stayed in the Warthog jumped out to join them.

The female Marine jogged over to Johnson, the rest walking. Johnson didn't waste any time. "Where's the rest of your platoon?"

"Wasted, Sarge."

Six heard the Marine next to her stammer out a reply. "We will be, too, sir, if we don't get the hell out of here!" He started to move to the Pelican, likely intending to get on, when a heavy hand from Johnson came down on his shoulder.

The black man's eyes met the younger Marine's. "You hit, Marine?"

The Marine seemed caught off guard. "N-no, sir."

Johnson shook the Marine, steel entering his voice. "Then listen up!" Johnson let his arm drop and took another drag off of the cigar that had been waiting patiently in his hand, nodding with satisfaction as the cherry burned brightly and back to nothing again. "The Lieutenant is gonna jump in this tank, roll across the bridge, and blow up any inhuman-son-of-a-bitch dumb enough to get between her and the Prophet of Regret! Now pull yourself together, Marine, because you're going with her!"

The female Marine seemed confused. "What about that Scarab?"

Johnson wasn't phased by that, and he likely would have went after the Scarab himself if he could. "We've all run the simulations. They're tough, but they _ain't_ invincible. Stick with the Lieutenant, she'll know what to do."

"Yes, sir, Sergeant Major!"

Johnson turned to go back to the Pelican, but noticed something was amiss. Looking back in the wrecked Pelican, his jovial attitude seemed to falter. Noticing the dead Marine in the Warthog's second seat, he gestured to the body. "Who has his tags?"

Six, having taken them during the tunnel ride, pulled a bloodied, bent set of dog tags from one of her storage pouches, holding them out for Johnson. The burly Marine looked took them and looked them over for a moment, before shaking his head and stuffing the tags into one of the numerous pouches on his armor rig. "Damn shame," he muttered, sighing. Keying his mic, he called to the pilots in the Pelican. "Back it up, we've got a KIA and another Warthog to take back." The Pelican began to move without a response, likely watching through numerous cameras on the hull.

Looking back at Six, he shoved the cigar back into his mouth, chomping down on it. "Follow that Scarab, shut it down. We'll have new orders by then. It's heading straight for the carrier and a Marine unit is setting up now to head it off."

"That thing doesn't look like it'll go down as easily as the other model, Johnson," Six replied. Most Scarabs seen in combat were different than this. The purple, bulbous weapons platform that had been seen at Reach had been taken down with numerous anti-vehicle weapons, knee joints being destroyed to get to the vulnerable core inside. It was dangerous, however, and rarely attempted when MAC rounds could be dropped instead.

Johnson shook his head. "It won't. These are a different version entirely. We haven't seen them since Harvest. They're used as mining platforms, but they're still heavily armed and armored. Gotta get on top and get inside to get at the crew. The power core should be inside the main compartment."

Six sighed. Nothing was ever easy, was it? "Roger, moving out now." She replied. The Marines followed after her. Off to the side, an M12G1 Gauss Warthog sat unmanned, and Six pointed at it. The skittish Marine that looked shaken and the driver from before took over, with the skittish Marine put on the turret. The other Marine, Assassin 2-3, went with Six.

"I'll take the MG, ma'am," she offered, climbing over the tread pods and sliding herself into the machine gunner's position, pulling the charging handle back and chambering a round even as Six dropped into the driver's seat, the Scorpion's engine rumbling to life. Six's neural interface connected to the system, Cortana facilitating the process even as Six started to accelerate.

It had been a while since Six had been trained in the Scorpion. Two control sticks, one on either side of her hips, controlled the gun. The left stick controlled the turret's aim and allowed her to manually fire or switch ammunition types. The right stick controlled the automated fire control system, accounting for lead and distance with the onboard computers. Two pedals in the floor controlled the tank's movement. The left and right pedals could be used to control the left or right track pairs respectively by 'leaning' forward or backward on them. A set of controls in front of her at shoulder height would allow diagnostics of the onboard computer, starting and stopping of the tank's engine, and other various functions. A pair of monitors showed the main gun's optics and current status, as well as ammunition load and diagnostics systems specifically for the turret. Angling her feet forward, the engine revved, and Six felt the Scorpion lurch.

Heavy tracks creaked as the Scorpion started trundling forward, the Gauss warthog traveling behind it and to left to provide support in case anything tried to sneak up on the tank. They had a mile long suspension bridge to cover and the Scorpion wasn't going to have enough open space to reach full speed. Abandoned vehicles lay scattered across the bridge, and in the distance, a group of Ghosts, hovering fast attack vehicles, and a lumbering Wraith hover tank patrolled.

"Cortana," Six started. "Move the Marines we picked up to a localized channel, we'll use it to keep unit cohesion."

"Already done, Lieutenant."

Six started to manipulate the controls in the Scorpion's cockpit. It was a little cramped in her armor, meant for Marines that weren't wearing bulky shoulder pieces. The Wraith halfway down the bridge began to rotate as the Covenant became aware of the UNSC force moving towards them.

The gunner's sight in the cockpit showed the main gun's optics zoom in on the Wraith, and the targeting computer began tracking the hover tank's movement. Fire control had advanced plenty during the war, and with the Scorpion controlled by two at the best of times, drivers didn't always have the luxury to sight in properly. "Cover your ears, Marines," she muttered, before pulling the trigger.

The Scorpion's gun boomed, having magnitudes more sting than the arachnid it was named and designed after. A 90mm tungsten armor piercing ballistic capped shell flew true and hit the Wraith, the sheer kinetic energy of the gun pushing the alien tank back an instant before detonating inside of the Wraith. The plasma mortar on the aft side blew, adding a second, blue cloud of fire and smoke to the fire works. One of the Ghosts nearby was taken out by shrapnel from the Wraith's chassis expanding out after the plasma mortar went up. The remaining three Ghosts rocketed down the bridge towards her.

Even as the Scorpion's gun began to reorient on the Ghosts, the Gauss Warthog behind them skidded out from behind it and the gunner sighted in. One pull of the trigger and a magnetically accelerated rod lanced out at 40 times the speed of sound. The driver of the first Ghost never even knew what hit him, with the round going through the front of the Ghost, through the driver, and out the back to ricochet off the surface of the bridge with a loud pinging sound. The Ghost skittered as the damage it had taken had mortally wounded it, and with no pilot to try and control it, the Ghost puttered out and fell before detonating.

The Scorpion finished ejecting one of the heavy spent shells directly out of the rear of the turret even as the Warthog fired again, taking one of the hover wings off of another Ghost and leaving it to fall to the ground. The engine core inside shook the Ghost like a ragdoll, even as the Elite pilot bailed and tried to return fire with a plasma rifle. The final Ghost was coming into range even now, twin plasma cannons opening up on the Scorpion.

The plasma bolts splashed against the Scorpion's frontal armor, the Marine in the machine gun pod covering her face and sliding deeper into the seat to try and take cover. Six, having found her target and locked it up, fired again and brought the Ghost down a tack. The round went through the other side and detonated on the bridge, launching the Ghost spinning into the air, where it flew over the side of the bridge and into the churning waters below.

The Elite that had survived the battle was sprinting for the Scorpion, and with the Marine in the gun pod coming back up and returning to the gun, she wasn't going to be fast enough to stop the Elite from getting on the tank.

She didn't have to be, either. The Warthog, with a purely kinetic weapon that had no explosive filler, became a battering ram, the driver gunning the engine and making it roar as it sped forward to gore the Elite much like a Warthog from the animal kingdom would gore predators. The Elite was impaled on the Warthog's towing tusks, and the Marine driving hit the brakes. With such a rapid deceleration, the Elite fell off, left to lay on the ground as the Marine hit the gas again and the Elite was sucked under the wheels, an unwilling speed bump to be disregarded by Marines that had the need for speed.

"That's gonna leave a mark!" The driver of the Warthog crowed, his fist pumping into the air.

Six shook her head as the Warthog slowed down, sliding back into place at the rear of the Scorpion as the gunner oriented back to the rear, already spotting something new. "Incoming hostiles, Phantoms with a banshee escort! They'll be on your left, Lieutenant!" The sound of the gauss cannon firing traveled through the mic as static, drowned out inside of the tank by the heavy armor and the engine's rumbling.

Six pulled the gun's stick to the left, letting it swivel on its mount to find the incoming air power. The Phantom, bulbous though it was, began to open fire. Pink and purple plasma bolts hit the bridge's structure, melting the highway they were traveling across. The Warthog was nearly hit, forced to take a jump to evade. Six, with her gun on target, fired and hit the Phantom. The round didn't pierce its armor, but did blow the front plasma battery off, and likely shook the pilot up. A Wraith, dangling beneath it, was dropped from the impact and fell to the water below. Another hit struck home, the Phantom teetering to the left and losing power to join the Wraith.

"More coming, one on the right and one on the left!" The Marine called out again.

"I have the one on the left," Six responded, the Scorpion already oriented to the left. A pair of Banshees broke off from the Phantom that was coming, moving faster than its partner on the right. The Scorpion fired, hitting the Phantom dead on, but it stayed up and kept coming. One of the banshees started to boost forward, while the other broke off to strafe the rear of the Scorpion. Plasma bolts thudded into the armor, melting it away and exposing the engine as the rear maintenance hatch that allowed access was destroyed. A warning blared in the tank's interior, and Six grunted as she went to fire again, reorienting on the Banshee. A fuel rod hit to the rear would end very badly for them.

The Banshee was torn out of the sky, ripped in half as the round detonated. The other Banshee, moving far too fast for the Marine in the gunner's seat, began to come around as they rolled up to the midway point of the bridge. The Gauss cannon continued to fire, taking down its second Banshee and transitioning to the Phantom. The surviving Banshee began to come around, moving on a long turn that was abruptly cut short as a flash of fire and a trail of smoke plowed into it, destroying the Banshee and leaving it to fall to the ground with a brutal crack.

"What just happened?" Assassin 2-3 asked, sounding confused. A pair of Marines, one holding a rocket launcher while the other replaced the pair of tubes that supplied ammunition, came around the support cabling of the bridge. "Assassin 3-3 is still up!" She cheered, realizing who it was.

Cortana had already brought them to the comms channel, and the rocket launcher Marine went first. "Assassin 2-3, this is 3-3, we're still green. Assassin Actual is confirmed KIA. We're all that's left. Mind if we catch a ride?"

"2-3 copies, 3-3. Take that launcher and hop on the Scorpion. We could use some more fire power."

"Oh yeah? Mind if we choose the radio station?"

"You touch my music and I'll spank ya, 3-3."

The Marines laughed as Six brought the tank to a halt. At the far side of the bridge, a pair of black contrails rose on the left side, two Warthogs burning and clumped together with several green clad corpses scattered around them. Two Wraith tanks sat waiting, already sighting in on the bridge from where they were. A thump on the driver's hatch and Six was off again, taking aim on the Wraiths as they let loose a barrage of plasma mortars.

"We have inbound, going evasive," the Warthog called, speeding up and getting around the tank and ahead of the projected landing point for the mortars. The gauss cannon fired, and thunder sounded as the projectile traveled down range to lance into the right Wraith's left side. One of the forward fins was torn off, and the Wraith sagged slightly as it lost one of its hover pods, but it was still active. Six hit it dead center and the Wraith was silenced as it fell to the ground and exploded.

The other Wraith, still watching, sent out another mortar even as the first barrage touched down. One of the shots landed wide, but the other was a little too close for comfort, blasting a hole in the concrete to the Scorpion's left and sending vaporized concrete everywhere. One of the Marines, the ammo bearer for the launcher, screamed as a large glob of concrete hit his arm and melted his fatigues, fusing the cloth to his skin. Six didn't stop, not wanting to be near where the second one came down.

The gauss cannon fired once, and again, the Wraith falling as the hover system went out. The mortar was still up, and with Six getting her next shot off, it was too slow to stop the third barrage, just before the Wraith detonated. The second mortar hit and blew a hole in the bridge, forcing Six to come to a stop.

"Back up! Back up!" One of the marines yelled out, waving their hand at the driver's hatch. Six grunted, leaning back on the pedals and hoping the tank would be fast enough.

The mortar came down just past the tank, more of the bridge crumbling behind it as Six once again fought against the forces of inertia. The tank's treads stopped before going forward again, and with more of the bridge crumbling and falling into the sea below, she was starting to think they might not make it. The Marines on the tread pods bailed, moving as soon as they saw what was happening. One of them yelled to the Marine in the machine gun. "2-3, the tank's gonna go over!"

The Marine, cursing, climbed out and rapped on the driver's hatch. "Lieutenant! The tank's gonna fall and you're gonna go with it if you don't get the hell out!"

Six, still struggling with the tank, set the cruise control and finally gave up, the driver's hatch popping up and letting her scramble out and onto the hull. Despite the Scorpion still struggling against gravity and the bridge, it continued to lose ground. With the Marines having jumped off already, Six felt it shift beneath her and crawled faster. Her armor scraped against the steel hull and she felt her heart racing, even as she reached the front and pushed herself off. The heavy Mjolnir made her fall like a sack of rocks, even as the Scorpion finally lost its fight and went over the edge, smashing into the waves below. The Marines, all breathing heavily, watched Six stand up. The golden visor betrayed little emotion, and the Spartan started to walk towards the end of the bridge. Armed with only her battle rifle, Six unslung it and kept moving.

The Warthog, with one empty seat, pulled up next to her. "Need a ride, ma'am?" Six nodded, climbing onto the rear as the gunner switched to the empty passenger seat. The other three Marines that made up the rest of Assassin 2-3 and 3-3 clambered on, hanging from the side. With most of the Covenant presence at the end of the bridge having been demolished, they seemed like they would be fine.

Then the tide turned. Another Wraith and a pair of Ghosts skimmed out of the waiting tunnel at the other end, and Six was already sighting in with the gauss cannon when Cortana spoke up.

"Quite the welcoming party they have set up for us," she quipped.

Six, pulling the trigger and sending another shot down range to end one of the Ghosts, shook her head. "Do you ever run out of one liners?"

The AI sounded amused. "When you've worked primarily with the strong silent type, you get used to it."

"Noted, Cortana."

"You don't like it?"

Another Ghost blew up as Six's aim was true. "On the contrary, I like to think of it as a career hazard."

Cortana's synthetic laughter filled her helmet as the Marine driver swerved to avoid another plasma mortar, the Marines hanging off of the sides and rear struggling to hang on at this speed. "You're different from the others, Noble Six. Not the strongest, nor the fastest, but there's something about you I've yet to pinpoint."

"Is that so?" Six asked. "It's not because of my love of shooting my way out, is it?"

"I think that's something you and your predecessor have in common, but so did every other Spartan. I'll get back to you on it."

Six rolled her eyes, a ghost of a smile on her face "Yeah, take all the time you want, Cortana." Six pulled the trigger again as the coils in the gauss cannon charged up, and another round was sent hurtling at the Wraith. This time, it struck dead center where the driver's hatch was and ripped it off before burrowing into the inner cockpit and through the thin interior, ripping into the inner workings of the plasma mortar and detonating it. The Wraith was torn apart, with the Marines giving a sigh of relief.

Six keyed the comms, her voice reaching the ears of all the Marines. "We make it to that tunnel and we'll be golden, get us inside."

"Yes ma'am," he replied.

The rest of the ride was quick, the Warthog covering the remaining half mile quickly as the engine roared. A pair of Banshees hurtled over the tunnel entrance, but Six made short work of one, the other getting torn out of the sky by the last rocket the Marine to Six's left had. Discarding the launcher, it bounced several times before stopping, left abandoned on the bridge.

The sun, bright as it was, gave way to the darkness inside of the tunnel system. More wrecked vehicles choked the road up, forcing the driver to slow down as they passed through. To the left, hidden behind a wrecked bus, another Ghost and a pair of Elites stood. Six turned the gauss cannon on the pair and made short work of them, with only a few more plasma made pits on the Warthog's exterior, and the Marines grumbling about it.

A curve in the road took them to the right, and up ahead a mass of abandoned vehicles clogged the road just in front of a massive roadblock that wasn't coming down without them finding the control room. Off to the right, from another tunnel section, another Warthog armed with an M41 chaingun came hurtling out and onto the main road just ahead of the Gausshog. One of them waved, the Marine in the passenger seat waving back. It stopped just before the road block, the driver and passenger getting out while the gunner stayed on to watch the area ahead.

With Six's Warthog coming to a stop, they all left it, with Six leading the way. A female Marine came up first, holding her hand out. IFF read as Sergeant Jane Kosleck. Six took it and shook, before the Marine held a shotgun out. "It'll be close quarters on the other side, ma'am, figure you might want a better tool for it."

Six nodded. "Much appreciated, I'll take any advantage I can get, Marine." She replied. "What's your status?"

"Remnants of Hotshot 1-1, just east of here. Our unit was wiped out by that Scarab when it came through. Stepped all over us. Heard the 405th was setting up a road block and, given we're no longer combat effective, we were on our way to form up with them. I'm not a fan of getting overrun, ma'am."

"Nobody ever is, Sarge. I've been collecting Marines all day long. Stick with me and I'll take care of you." Six replied.

"Aye, ma'am." She called to the Marine still on the gun. "Come on, Ridder, ain't much use for that anymore. We're hoofing it from here. LT says she's taking us for chow after this."

Six sighed, Cortana's simulated trill sounding again. "You've got a soft spot for them, don't you?"

"They're someone's family, Cortana. Somebody is gonna want them back after this. Who better to try and take them through to the other side than me?"

"Point taken. Is that what sets you apart from your peers? The others?"

The Marines led the way up the side passage that took them over the top of the barricade. "What do you mean? That I'm different?"

"Maybe. You've shown you're better than the rest. How else would you have gotten the designation 'Hyper Lethal Vector'?"

Before Six could answer, a bolt of plasma flew in, hitting one of the Marines in the shoulder and spinning him around as he moved with the shot, yelling and dropping his assault rifle as he did. Six was already moving. "Contact!" She yelled, launching past the Marines with the shotgun in hand. The first target to make contact with her was an Elite with a group of Grunts in tow. She leveled the barrel and pulled the trigger, hitting the Elite and blowing him off the side and the dozen foot drop to the ground.

The Grunts squealed as their superior went down, trying to turn and run, but the Marines moving up with Six hosed them down with gunfire and kept advancing. In the distance, Six saw Jackal snipers setting up on the opposite barricade. "Snipers! Get in cover!" She called out, pulling the battle rifle from her back and dropping her shotgun. She sighted in and took one down, before aiming to hit the other. Halfway through her turn, the Jackal took another shot, hitting her battle rifle just above the pistol grip. The intense heat made the rounds remaining in her magazine cook off, and Six tossed it away.

Taking the shotgun back up, she pushed off to sprint forward, Marines leaping from cover to cover as they suppressed the Jackal with assault rifle fire. It kept the sniper off of Six's back and let her deal with whatever got in her way without worrying about being cored.

More Elites tried to stand up to her, being put down by the shotgun with ease. With nothing left, and the barricade right there, Six moved up on the Jackal that remained. Squawking loudly, it dropped the beam rifle it had clutched in its talons and struggled to activate the arm shield on its wrist. Right as Six sighted in on it with the shotgun, the weapon clicked. In the top right of her HUD, she saw the ammunition counter had gone down to empty. Giving a frustrated grunt, the Spartan stepped forward and covered the distance.

Even as the Jackal drew its plasma pistol and opened fire, the shots went wide, with Six never slowing down. She grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and swung it like a club into the shield. The sound of an arm cracking and an agonized cry filled the tunnel, and the shield went to the side, dangling from the broken arm. Another swing from Six finished it off and she discarded the now empty shotgun.

At the opposite end, where she had come from, the Marines watched, some amused, some looking shocked, and others having not seen as they watched up a side passage that led outside. Going back to them, she took an offered assault rifle that one of the Marines had dropped upon their death. Kosleck gave Six a look that she didn't quite know how to place, maybe questioning.

"Little personal with things, ma'am?"

"You're not the first to ask me today, and you likely won't be the last. Come on, let's get moving. The sooner we link up with the 405th, the better."

Kosleck didn't respond, watching Six as the Spartan led the way into the maintenance tunnel. It curved to the left halfway up, bathed in red lighting, with a hint of sunlight coming in. The ramp kept going up and a Jackal sniper watched over a large courtyard with what looked like a system of platforms over a pond.

Sighting in with the assault rifle, Six put three rounds into it from behind, dropping it. Down in the courtyard, another gauss Warthog was driving in circles without a gunner, an ODST missing his helmet in the driver's seat. Six pointed to the platforms, giving orders to the Marines. "Suppress that position, move up when they're finished off. I'm going ahead."

Kosleck was already in the prone position, using the elevation to her advantage. "Yes ma'am, we got your back."

Six didn't go any further, taking the opportunity to slide down the embankment just as the driver of the Warthog noticed her and came to a stop. "Could use you on the gun, ma'am!" The driver called out. It was Gunnery Sergeant Stacker, the ODST squad leader she had met earlier after his Pelican had gone down."

Six wasted no time in clambering up onto the gun as Stacker floored it, going on. "We gotta stop meeting like this, Lieutenant! I think you're a little out of my league!"

Six swung the gun around, firing at the heavy weapons that were scattered around the platform, thinning their ranks as fire from the Marines she'd left behind put accurate shots in on Grunts and Elites alike. "You know how to flatter a girl, Gunny," she replied, shaking her head. "Is this where they took you after your pickup?"

"Yes ma'am, they dropped me and my boys off not far from here, then saw that Scarab coming towards us. Orders from command came down, told us to link up with the 405th at one of the canal treatment plants. Word says they're getting ready to break its legs and bring it down!"

"Then that's where we're going. We'll finish up here and make our way there!" Six called out.

The platform cleared up quickly, with Stacker turning into a hole in the wall that led through to another plaza, this time with a Wraith and a pair of Ghosts making a nuisance of themselves. Six hit the Ghosts, killing one of the driver's outright and causing the other to explode with the rider still on board, before turning her attention to the Wraith. In such close proximity, getting hit was much more likely, and Stacker was only just barely able to avoid the shot that had come for him. Six aimed, looking for a weak spot, before firing and hitting the plasma mortar assembly dead on. The mortar blew, secondaries traveling through the Wraith even as the driver tried to bail out. He wasn't quick enough, and with the Wraith going up around him, the Elite was swallowed up by the explosion.

Stacker kept going, getting the Warthog around the Wraith's burning carcass. The closed in room had a waterfall cascading down a pillar erected in the middle, with two small fountains on either side. Six had no time to stop and admire it, however, as the Warthog rocketed out into the streets of New Mombasa.

Cortana spoke up into Six's ear. "There are Marines trapped in a command post just up ahead, they're under siege by two Wraiths and several Ghosts. It's where the Marines were planning to hold the Scarab and destroy it if possible. If we want to take it out, we'll need to move quick. It'll be right on top of us in just a few more minutes."

"Copy, Cortana." She looked back to Stacker, even as another Warthog came from the left and started to follow them. "Marine CP up ahead, Gunny. Wraiths paying them a visit. We need to clear it out."

Stacker gave an affirmative and put the pedal down, the two Warthogs screeching around the corner and spotting the Marine CP. Several Marines were firing down into the road where the Wraiths were sitting, several Ghosts skittering around and harassing the building's ground level. A Marine with a rocket launcher poked out and hit one of the Ghosts, leaving it a blazing wreck. With the Wraiths focused on the building, it was perfect.

Six let fly a shot from the gauss cannon, the shot plowing into the rear of the nearest Wraith. Her shot had punched into the exhaust vent leading to the power core, the Wraith going up in flames even as it fell to the ground and exploded. She did the same to the second Wraith, but it was already turning around, and the round ricocheted off of the front right side.

"Hit it again, Lieutenant!" Stacker crowed, already moving to avoid the mortar that was lobbed into the air. One of the Ghosts started to come for them as well, before the other Warthog rammed into it and sent it careening into a small store front.

Six aimed carefully and took another shot, this time striking the Wraith's frontal armor. The Wraith kept coming though, firing another shot. This time, it hit close enough to put the Warthog on two wheels. Six grunted, irritated, and took another shot. It was all she needed to finish it off, hitting the same spot and crumpling the weakened armor. It went through the driver's compartment and mulched the driver, but the Wraith didn't blow up this time. It was unusable at least, and that's all Six needed.

The Warthog skewed to a stop in front of the CP, with Six hopping off and a Marine taking her place. Stacker left the Warthog as well, following her into the CP. A Marine came down the stairs, looking out of breath. "Ma'am! Corporal Perez, A Company. CP's this way! The Lieutenant got hit as soon as we dropped in."

Six looked down at him. "Who's in charge now, Corporal?"

"Uh, Sergeant Banks, ma'am! He's pinned down up top, I'll show you to him." He said, turning on his heel and heading back up the steps. Six followed and Stacker looked back out at the plaza as a Scorpion was dropped off, before following after them.

Halfway up the stairs, on a landing, an M247 Heavy Machine Gun was set up, with a Marine holding a rocket launcher smoking a cigarette next to him. The stairs went up a few more flights, before they emerged onto a rooftop. A Marine wearing a backpack mounted radio turned as they stepped out.

"When I asked for reinforcements, I didn't think they'd send a Spartan," he said. A deep green colored beam shot out down the street from around a building, the Sergeant turning back to look at it. The Scarab came around the corner after, and the Scorpion posted outside opened fire, hitting it in the face once, and then again, before the Scarab had charged the beam up again.

The tank was hit directly and blown to pieces, one of the Marines calling out in fear. "We're fucked! We're so fucked!"

Banks sounded more irritated than anything. "Marine! Did I give you permission to bitch!"

The Scarab, not satisfied with just the Scorpion, kept coming. Six was running out of options, and the Marines were already out. Banks yelled out an order. "This thing is really starting to _piss me off_! Fall back to the canal! It's time to kill us a Scarab, Marines!"

He turned and started running, the Marines in the building coming up and following him as Six and Stacker took up the rear. They went through a large room that opened up to a series of walkways that led over the canal, the Scarab dropping into it and causing the ground to shake beneath Six's boots. Weapons and ammo were lined up all over the area, Marines grabbing rocket launchers and rifles to shoot at the Scarab as it passed underneath. One lucky hit by a Marine rocket jockey hit the Scarab where the anti aircraft turret sat, making it billow black smoke and excess plasma as a line was struck. At least they wouldn't be shot by it now.

Six grabbed a shotgun from one of the depots, filling it and dumping more ammunition into her pouches. She would need it. Stacker took one as well, following in her footsteps. "Gunny? You sure you want one of those?" She asked.

"Hell yeah I want one of these. I ain't taking no rifle into that thing!"

Six's eyebrow raised behind her visor, but she said nothing. "As you wish, Gunny. Come on, it'll follow the canal to the end, we'll cut it off there."

The marines on the canal walls continued to unleash fire on the Scarab's deck as more Covenant came out, forcing them to a grizzly end that Six was more than happy to provide with a battle rifle she picked up. The Scarab kept walking along the canal, until it came to the end. With nowhere else to go and a sheer drop below, the Scarab was trapped.

Looking back to Stacker, she was hesitant to let him come. "You sure you're good for this?"

The ODST grinned at her, stepped back, and took a running jump, landing on the Scarab and rolling. He didn't come up from the roll, but he made it onto the Scarab at least. Six huffed, not one to be shown up, and pushed off from the canal wall to land on the Scarab and join him.

Holding her hand out, the ODST took it. The fall had knocked the wind out of him. "Probably should have let me go first, Gunny."

He coughed a few times, shaking his head. "Yeah, probably- probably should have let you take the lead." He finished coughing after another fit, with Six guarding the tunnel leading into the crew compartment.

When he was ready, she took the lead. A red armored Elite patrolling inside looked shocked that someone had actually boarded the Scarab. Raising his plasma rifle, he was taken down almost immediately by the Spartan and her shotgun. Stacker went around the other side, another Elite warbling loudly before the Marine ended its life. With two shotguns inside of the Scarab, they would be making quick work of the crew.

A silver armored Elite near the front of the crew area roared a challenge and drew an energy sword, the ghastly light coming off of the plasma filling the interior with another source of lighting. He charged at Six and she fired, taking his shields out but not wounding him, and swiped at her. Six ducked the swing and went to aim again, before a shot from Stacker finished the Elite off. She nodded at him in thanks, but the two couldn't stop when there was still one more Elite fiddling with the controls.

Six put another blast into the Elite and finished it off, moving to the controls. Cortana was already translating them, telling Six which buttons to press, and finally Six felt the Scarab lurch. The legs shut down outside, bringing the Scarab down into the water traveling the length of the canal. It wouldn't be activated again any time soon.

She jerked her head towards the way they had come, with Stacker leading the way back out. The two emerged from within the Scarab, the afternoon sun glinting off of Six's armor as they took a moment to look at the space elevator and the assault carrier hanging suspended next to it. Suddenly, the grav lift cut out and the carrier started moving for the first time since posting up there earlier that morning.

Jet wash buffeted the pair as a Pelican dropped in right next to them, Johnson standing in the cockpit between the pilots. "That's right you mothers, run!"

The _In Amber Clad_ roared overhead, Keyes' voice already sounding in Six's ear. "Not if we can help it, Sergeant Major. Extract Noble Six and return to _In Amber Clad_."

"Roger that," he replied, the Pelican moving in to pick up Six and Stacker, the rear ramp dropping open to admit them. Six went straight for the cockpit, Stacker taking a seat and strapping in in the blood tray. The command channel kept going, even as Johnson turned to Six. "Good work out there, Lieutenant. Couldn't have done it better myself."

Six shrugged, her large shoulder pieces bobbing as she did. "All in a day's work."

The Sergeant Major gave her a grin as the Pelican's door closed and it vectored towards the frigate, making moves to close the gap between it and the carrier when suddenly a bright white light shot from the front of the carrier, causing a whirling vortex to open up just past the space elevator.

Six's eyes narrowed. "Is that carrier trying to jump? _Inside_ the city?"

Johnson turned back to look at it, cursing to himself. "It is." He put his hand on the pilot's seat. "Punch it, get us inside _In Amber Clad_ now, or we'll be turned into a statistic."

The pilots didn't respond, but pushed the throttle forward. The Pelican responded easily, lurching forward and closing on the frigate rapidly. They flared the nose up and burned off speed seconds later, before ascending into one of the lower aft hangars. The hangar door closed underneath them and the Pelican shifted to the side, putting down next to the hangar door.

The deck shifted under them, the Pelican sliding a bit before stabilizing. The frigate had just started a full throttle burn, and most of them could figure out why. Johnson, Six, and Stacker left the Pelican as the pilots shut it down, Johnson leading the way. The intercom came to life and left them all looking up. "All hands, prepare for transition to slipspace. Repeat, all hands, prepare for transition to slipspace."

The intercom cut off and Cortana used Six's speakers to warn them. "You might wanna grab onto something. If Keyes is anything like her father, it'll be a bumpy ride."

Six started walking again, not wanting to be in a hangar full of large things to be thrown around in case this went south. "We'll be fine," she muttered. Johnson and Stacker must have trusted her gut as much as she did, following close behind her.

The doors out of the hanger opened, admitting the trio, and shut behind them. Then the deck lurched beneath their feet, throwing Stacker to the ground. Johnson had grabbed onto Six's shoulder, keeping himself from joining the other Marine. Six looked back at him quizzically, before he let go. "Problem, Sergeant Major?"

He played it off. "I had to make sure you didn't fall and hurt Gunny Stacker. Would have ended badly for him."

Stacker, likely irritated with being thrown about or onto the ground as much as he had been that day, got to his feet. "Better her falling than me. I'm getting too old for this shit."

The two started going back and forth as Six turned to head for Greer's office, with Cortana's voice sounding in her ears. "You did well today."

"Don't I do well every day?"

"Well, yes, but I haven't seen the other days."

"We're meant to raise the bar. Higher standards and all that."

"True," Cortana relented. "I think I'd like to stay with you a while. I'll need to connect with the ship at some point to put a subroutine into the system, but I hope you don't mind your armor being my primary home for the moment."

"No, I don't mind. It's nice not being alone."

Cortana's voice sounded almost somber as she realized what Six was talking about. "Weren't you alone often? Before Noble?"

Six shrugged, even though Cortana couldn't physically see it. "I was, almost all the time. My only company was myself and whatever contact I had with ONI, usually another handler that was just someone to pass my file on to the next person or the next mission."

The AI hummed, sitting cross legged with her arms crossed, floating between layers of code in Six's neural lace. "How did you feel about it?"

Six stopped walking, the question catching her off guard. "How did I feel about it?" Six, unsure of her answer, had never really thought about it. It never came to her mind. Now, with the combat high wearing off and her unable to do anything at all aside from wait for more orders, she was put between a rock and an unofficial therapist. "I don't know."

Cortana was starting to dig deeper. "What about Noble? How did you feel with them?" She regretted asking it almost immediately.

"I don't know, Cortana. Now's not the time." She took her helmet off, leaving Cortana to either air the Spartan's emotional state out over the speakers or hold her questions in. Cortana chose the latter.

Six reached up, pulling her hair out of the tight bun it had been in for hours. It fell into place, with part of it covering her eyes, and she felt the pressure in her scalp ease as she started to relax a little. Still, the questions Cortana had asked had rattled the Spartan. Six had never stopped to think of how she felt about it, how things impacted her more than the mission. That was what she had used, what she had buried herself in. It was why she was so lethal and effective.

Even during training, she had never been one to dwell in the moment, always pushing forward and getting the next job done. Those first few nights, having been denied dinner for losing, brought back painful memories she had worked hard to suppress, to lock into a box and hide in her mind. From that final night, with only her rumbling stomach to keep her company, she had decided the before and the now were inconsequential in the face of what came next.

Noble Six refused to go hungry again.


	7. Surf, Sun, and Super Weapons

Cortana watched the lines of code that crossed inside of the _In Amber Clad_ 's mainframe. The engines were still pushing it along through the vast emptiness of slipspace, so much larger than realspace, and infinitely more intriguing to the AI. Multiple dimensions pushed together like a piece of paper, folded and holed for the Human and Covenant vessels to slip through unnoticed until they exited, shedding wave upon wave of Cherenkov Radiation and ringing the dinner bell to whatever hungry sharks awaited in the darkness.

An alert flickered, with the AI brushing it away without a second thought. The data from the first Halo demanded categorization, demanded her full processing power, but she hadn't had any time to dedicate herself to the task, to throw herself into it as she so desperately wanted to. Other things came first. The war, the chase, the Spartans.

Her processing power flickered as the name passed her mind. John. The Master Chief. A hero dozens, hundreds of times over, left frozen in time. To make it through 27 years of hell, only to get shot on the way out the door. Setting another Spartan's funeral pyre had almost earned a second for 117. Ambushing Brutes were more of a match in close combat than they had anticipated, even with multiple sightings over the years the war had dragged on. Not even a Spartan could hope to stand up to a bear hug for long against them.

Cortana simulated a sigh, tearing herself from the injuries the Spartan- no, _her_ Spartan – had sustained. She longed to be with him once more. She enjoyed his stoicism, the one liners. John had been to the point, controlled, never losing his temper. The man had been a bastion of logic, of bravery, a machine bred for war.

Others, however, were not cut from an entirely same cloth.

Spartan-B312 was different. Just as deadly and, crunching the numbers, just as lucky. Cortana brought the file up again, going through it for the thousandth time that day alone. The black ink fell away in some places, others being far more stubborn, the ONI censors standing up well to Cortana's intrusions.

Like all Spartan IIIs, the woman known as Noble Six had lost her parents to the Covenant. The UNSC wasn't forced to steal children from their beds when the orphanages were full to the brim with children and a youthful rage, something far beyond their years guiding the fire in their hearts.

A picture of a giant in luminescent green armor towered above children at the least only four years old. Barely able to dress themselves and this so called 'green knight' was throwing them from dropships. Noble Six bad pulled the cord, had parachuted down to the grass below and landed in front of a man a generation older.

A note in her file, written by Kurt-051 himself, had pointed to the fiery disposition by the six year old girl in front of him. " _A jutting jaw and bunched fists, a maverick that doesn't quite fit the pony tail she wears._ " Cortana mouthed the words as she read them, her eyes narrowing. More notes sprung up as Cortana dug, even an incident report filed by Senior Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, the man who had trained the Spartan IIs and then the IIIs, dated late 2539

**Date: XXX/XXX/2539**

**Time: 2321 hours**

**Location: Camp Currahee, Primary Mess Hall**

**Involved: Morgan-B312, Catherine-B320.**

**Incident: B320 seen attempting to share food with B312 after B312's failure to compete adequately in exercises and subsequent loss of dinner privileges. Interaction between B320 and B312 minimal, with B312 refusing to look at B320. B320 punished by losing dinner on night of the incident and tomorrow (XXX/XXX/2539), regardless of performance.**

Cortana was interested now. It had taken nearly a week of picking apart the file to get to what had been buried beneath layers of security and black ink, but now she had it. Records indicated that, after the first week, B312 had improved significantly, almost leaps and bounds ahead of the others, but with no discernible reasoning. Cortana's own musings led her to believe that Catherine-B320 had something to do with it, but she wasn't going to ask Six about it.

Cortana's digital expression soured as she remembered the last time she had spoken to the Spartan, a week prior, immediately after entering slipspace in the super carrier's wake. Six hadn't called for her, and while Cortana had of course been watching the Spartan on the ship's cameras, Six seemed to spend a large amount of her time alone. Even the rapport she had built up with Johnson and Stacker had seemed to have fallen by the way side.

Recent entries in Noble Six's file had been under much higher security, which Cortana had failed to break, but managed to chip away. The AI knew it had something to do with the Fall of Reach, and after the hand off in the Azod Ship Breaking Yards, Cortana had been quickly put into the _Pillar of Autumn_ 's systems. External cameras had zoomed in on the lone Spartan, watching as the _Autumn_ left her on a dead world. Cortana had thought that would be the last of Six that she would see, but life had a way of surprising even AIs.

Mention of Noble Team was sparse, only the initial deployment orders showing the name in full. Searching UNSC databases noted them as special warfare under an army command, led by Colonel Urban Holland. Another Spartan II, Jorge-052, had been assigned to Noble prior to Reach's fall.

Cortana frowned as she attempted to access another file in the hierarchy, only to be shut out without hesitation. Try as she might, the code was locked down, changing entirely after a set amount of time. Without a pass key, she'd be stuck trying for a while before breaking it. Even Cortana seemed to know when to give up.

Swiping the cloud of opened documents and pictures away, the datasphere was cleared and Cortana remained sitting cross legged, alone save for the scrolling lines of code that seemed almost like grains of sand in ever falling pillars. She swiped once more, a video box opening and showing the current footage of the corridor outside of Noble Six's berthing, a room on the deck where officers were given rooms to sleep in while the rest of the crew slept in bunks or sleeper pods. The lock on the door showing a dark red. With Noble Six nowhere else on the ship, Cortana knew the Spartan was still inside.

With no cameras inside of Six's room, and the ONI censors still in place on the Spartan's file, Cortana frowned, and left the window open, returning to categorizing the mountain of data taken from Halo's systems.

* * *

"My file, sir?" Six sat up, swinging her legs off of the small bed as Captain Greer's voice filled the small room, coming from the terminal that showed a still image of his face, the primary image on his own personnel file.

"Several red flags have appeared over the past week showing multiple access attempts, with each one getting further and further through the censors. In slipspace, we have access to local copies backed up from before the jump. Without the ONI database constantly switching the cipher, whoever's looking into it has been able to open up all but the Theta classification sections."

Six's eyes narrowed as she brushed a few errant strands of hair from her eyes. The week in slipspace had wound the crew down during travel, and her armor had been stowed, leaving her in fatigues or standard PT gear. Long, muscular legs came through black shorts that ended just above her knee, and biceps struggled to be contained by the thin gray shirt she wore. UNSC was stenciled across her chest in the blocky script the military favored.

Her bare feet ignored the cold steel decking as she stood from the bed and moved to sit in the chair at the desk, careful to sit down slowly. She was large enough even without her armor that she was afraid of breaking the chair. When it squeaked in protest, but held, she let herself focus on Greer. "It's Cortana. She started digging immediately after transition. Asking how I felt about Noble." Her face soured, a frown plastering itself to her face.

Greer didn't answer for a moment, with Six watching the bouncing equalizer that showed his voice patterns stabilize save for the smallest ambient noises, likely inputs on his keyboard. "You think she's trying to get inside your head? Find out things she shouldn't?"

"Things about me, yes, but likely not ONI's overall agenda. She made a few comments during the battle in Mombasa, comparing me to her last Spartan."

"117?"

"Yes, started asking how I felt about other things, my time before Noble and what I did. How I felt working alone."

"How _did_ you feel, 312?"

She bristled at the number designation. She had gotten used to being called something else. Being called _Noble Six_. Not the Spartan number, but a team number, something more than herself. Noble had used first names, given none of them remembered their family names anymore, and while Carter would go off of team position, he wasn't afraid to call them by their names. Kat had called her Morgan more often than Six, preferring it whenever she could. It felt nice, not being just another number.

"312?"

"I don't know."

She heard a hum come from Greer's end. "You seem on edge. You don't like it, do you?"

She had grown used to hearing her name, not just some number. Echoes from Jorge, from Kat, a quiet back and forth with either of them in that cave before she never saw the Spartan II again.

* * *

"You ready for this, Six?" Jorge sat against the wall, the large pack that held ammunition and the massive machine gun removed from him and setting off to the side.

Morgan looked over at him, away from the TACPAD on her wrist, green eyes meeting brown. "Ready as I'll ever be, Five. As long as you're not a back seat driver, we'll be fine."

The big man chuckled. She never missed a chance with him. Always willing to tease when she could. It wasn't Jorge, though, that responded. Another voice, feminine, came into the light. "Ever the snark, Morgan?"

Morgan's gaze went from Jorge to Kat, a smirk finding its way onto her face, paler than the rest of the Spartans save for Jorge. "Just making the most of our little break, Kat."

Blue armor, a brighter shade than Morgan's own, joined the olive and orange combination Jorge had modified his own armor to. Helmets were off, cupped in crossed legs, ready to go on at a moment's notice. Off in another part of the cave, Jun and Emile slept, both with helmets on. Jun's arms could be seen cradling his sniper rifle, and Emile's own arms were crossed over his chest, the skull carved into his helmet forever smiling at them.

A silence fell over the three as Jorge checked the time, and seeing a way out without being obvious, slid his helmet back on. "I'll go check on Carter. He should be coming back inside soon." He said, standing and moving out of the mouth of the cave to where Carter's number designation stood as their sentry, tucked away in a group of rocks.

It was nowhere near time for him to take over, and Carter would likely call him on it, but neither woman said anything as the giant man made his way out.

When he had disappeared around the cliff mouth, Kat sought out Morgan's eyes. "It's been a long time since we've been alone like this, no orders being shouted or courses to run, not getting shot at or berated."

Morgan's lips quirked a bit, eyes twinkling in the darkness of the cave. "Come to offer me food again, Catherine?"

Kat's own lips curved up in a half smile. "Apparently it's not been long enough if you're bringing that up."

Morgan's smile grew, Kat's following it, before Kat went on. "It surprised me, seeing you again, you know that? I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I closed my eyes and you were there, and when I opened them even your bed was gone. Nothing was left that even showed you were there."

Morgan's smile fell. "You and me both. I didn't get a chance to wake you up, to say goodbye, to leave a message. Nothing. Mendez told me Commander Ambrose had summoned me and that I was getting reassigned. Everything after that was..." She seemed to struggle with it, before her words could be found. "A bad dream."

Kat's eyes narrowed slightly, searching her fellow Spartan's, her sister's, face. There weren't any tells, or at least, none Kat had ever seen. "What did they have you doing? That you were pulled out without a word."

Morgan shrugged, meekly, before answering what Kat had been waiting for. "Classified, Kat. I'm sorry."

The other woman sighed. "I knew that was coming. I looked over your file when it came down from Holland, showed more black ink than I thought even ONI had on hand. You've gotten around, it seems."

Morgan bit the inside of her cheek, shrugging again. "You could say that." Intent on changing the subject, she gestured to Kat's right arm, gone at the shoulder and replaced by a robotic prosthetic. A screw in the elbow continued to rotate at a steady rate. "Nice chrome."

Kat held it up, as if forgetting it was there, before shrugging like Morgan had. "It didn't cost too much, aside from your predecessor." Venom was dripping from her words, and it set Morgan on edge. She went on before she could be interrupted. "Battle of Fumirole, only a few months ago. We were supposed to take a nuke into a Covenant ship through the gravity lift, but things went off the rails. I got hit, lost my arm, and the old Six took it up." She glanced back down at the arm, fiddling with it a little bit, but Morgan knew it was more to avoid looking into her eyes. "He didn't come back out."

Morgan frowned. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Kat looked back up at her, gesturing with her hand to nothing in particular. "Just another part of the job. Would you be surprised to know that Carter and I are all that's left of the original team?" she asked, looking into Morgan's eyes.

"I'd say I'm not surprised at all, given how things go in this war."

"Point taken. There's another, one Holland keeps in reserve in case of counterinsurgency operations. Likes to bring her in rather than let Emile go rampant on them." Kat saw the change in Morgan's face at the mention of insurgents, but it was a flicker of something else, something that Kat couldn't quite place, but before she could bring it up, it was gone.

Morgan was silent for a time, and Kat wasn't going to break it, when she finally spoke up again. "Why did you get yourself caught that night?"

Kat seemed to think about it, not replying immediately. "You had gone hungry the previous two nights, and I didn't like the bread they gave us. Figured I could give it to you instead and make a friend. Two birds, one stone, and all that. I didn't expect to get caught and lose what parts of the dinner I actually _liked_."

Morgan's smile started to come back, even as Kat went through it. "So you decided you were going to give me what was the worst part of the meal out of pity? I don't know whether or not to be upset or thankful."

Kat's own smile came back, a chuckle passing her lips as she winked. "Be thankful. You got dinner the next night, at least. You're welcome."

The two shared a laugh, but that was the last they would get, with Carter and Jorge reentering the cave. Carter's helmet was already on, and Jorge was wasting no time in retrieving his weapons. "On your feet, Noble. We've got a ride to catch."

* * *

"312, _respond_."

A lapse in attention, brought on by memories that seemed as if they had occurred so long ago when it had only been a few weeks. "I'm here."

"Not entirely, it seems. You zoned out on me for a few minutes."

"Apologies, sir."

"Right. I'm watching your file for any further access attempts, but I think you should take time to put away the baggage that's about to fall out. Greer out."

The connection cut, leaving Morgan alone with her thoughts once more. Spartans weren't supposed to have baggage. Then again, nobody really thought about how expendable super soldiers were supposed to feel or think. PTSD was rampant in the UNSC after 27 years of fighting a genocidal enemy who wanted to exterminate them simply by dint of their gods demanding it. Even the members of the military that survived the war and were sent home weren't truly safe, with more than a handful locking themselves up in their homes and eating their guns. First contact had, of course, been a shit show. The fact that children had been conscripted by the handful to be turned into genetically altered solders spoke volumes on its own.

Six sat unmoving, her mind turning over everything that had just resurfaced. Was something wrong with her? She had no idea. Therapists weren't common on the battlefield. Cortana had tried to fill the role, but Six hadn't liked how it felt even when Cortana first mentioned it, pushing the AI away and distancing herself. It had hurt, in a way, more than the physical injuries ever did.

She shook her head. Morgan. Right now, she was Morgan, not a number, not a callsign. She was a person, but given how the rest of Humanity looked at it, she may as well be just as Human or just as much of a person as Cortana herself. Everybody she had known personally, considered a friend or family, was dead. Johnson may have been her friend, but she'd known him all of a week, and had spent only minutes of that time in contact with him. He didn't seem bothered by the fact that she was a Spartan. Most UNSC personnel decided the Spartans were machines or robots stuffed into armor, bleeding red for appearances, keeping Marines at a distance. Stacker didn't show his disdain for her if there was any, despite the decades long rivalry between the Spartans and the ODST branch. If anything, it only confused her more.

Morgan didn't like not knowing how she felt, how she fit into things, but her destiny was to be a piece that would never fit into the puzzle, something not meant to be.

In the end, it didn't matter, as she shook her head and rose from the chair to put a pair of running shoes on, and opened the door to her room. Turning to her left, she set off for the elevator system, a camera tracking her the instant she left her room.

Small ships like the _In Amber Clad_ didn't have dedicated gym facilities, with most Marines and nonessential personnel opting for cryo during long voyages. Most of the marine contingent now had gone under, with only a token force left for security and rapid ready status. As a result, going down several decks left Six in a maintenance corridor that ran the length of the ship, doubling back at the end. Very few would be down here, save for an engineer here or there. Morgan would have the time and chance to clear her head, one way or another.

* * *

Morgan started her fifth lap of the ship, each running almost 400 meters and back, before starting anew. Sweat was only just starting to bead on her forehead, and her shirt was taking on the discoloration provided by sweat, light gray becoming slate as it she continued her steady run, never deviating from the speed she started with.

Only a handful of souls had seen her, and none of them wanted to say anything to bring attention to themselves when there was a muscular woman that had something on her mind passing through the ship on an endless run. Morgan, despite her preference for not wanting to be alone, wanted nothing more than to be alone now.

Her heartbeat sounded steady in her ears, even with blood rushing through them and drowning the slaps of her shoes on the deck out. The huff of every exhale would make one think of a bull preparing to charge, but green eyes peered ahead with no target for the emotions inside.

Every lap, every new corridor, another camera was watching her, the viewer wanting to understand why she seemed so much different from the mountain of stoicism that had been John 117. The viewpoint of a Human examining another Human was less than effective when an AI was trying to pick apart someone who had been built to be more than Human. The gap was too large, too uncharted, and too… inhuman, to be made work of by a couch and questions made to work with psychological tells.

Cortana had studied the Spartan IIs, had chosen herself who would carry her through to the end of the war, and in another story, that might have made all the difference, but not in this once. Spartan IIIs were not the walls of unflinching resolve and robotic obedience to orders, spurred on by a lack of everything but war in their upbringing and stolen away from normal lives to be Spartans. No, Spartan IIIs had been born of true necessity, been reborn in the fires of war that had engulfed their homeworlds and everything they knew.

A Spartan III was not sculpted and made like their predecessors, but hammered into shape to act as a more populous alternative. They had been made to throw their lives away in service to Humanity, to end the Covenant's threat by dozens of lives at a time, to be thrown against the wall the Covenant made until they were all broken or dead and then have it done again with a new class, a new company. Some, like the fallen members of Noble, and Morgan herself, were outfitted in Mjolnir armor and sent out into the field as more than just disposable commandos. They were sent out to the field as true Spartans, and showed that they were just as lethal and effective as those that came before.

Sweat began to drip into Morgan's eyes as she made her tenth round, her shirt having become soaked with it just as well. Running had brought no peace to the Spartan, not in the way that battle did. Slowing to a stop, she decided it was time to end this, to return to her room and wait until she was called upon once again.

She turned, wiping at her eyes with the bottom of her shirt, and made for the nearest elevator. She was farther astern of the ship than her room, and the return to it wouldn't take very long. All it did was give her more time to think, to try to penetrate the feelings she didn't understand, that she wasn't supposed to be old enough to even have. 21 wasn't old by any means, but it was the life expectancy for her and her colleagues.

The elevator doors closed, sealing her into another box. Morgan questioned herself. Had she lost some part of her? She didn't even remember the faces either of her parents had, and her file had been blackened even to her. No last name, no planet of origin, no history, and given the way the war had gone, no future. Either Humanity would be wiped out, or she would die. She didn't know which would come first. Then it came to her, a thought even more jarring than that of death. What if they somehow won this war? What if she survived to the end? What use was an expendable super soldier with no war to fight?

She shuddered, surprising herself at the thought of it. Without war, she would be without purpose, and without purpose, what was she? What was Morgan-B312? She shook her head, her hair flying in the close confines of the elevator. A Spartan. She was a Spartan, and Spartans were made to make the impossible possible.

Questioning her future, her past, her very existence, was not something she was made to do, and so, it would be thrown to the side, left to be figured out when she came to it. There was little idea of whether it would be tomorrow, or if it would be years into the future, but Morgan would be ready to face those demons, and she would one day understand what it meant to be something more than just a war machine with no purpose outside of death and destruction. There was only one other alternative.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed the thought aside. Noble was waiting for her, but they could wait a little longer.

* * *

The next week passed as the first had, with Morgan alone save for her daily communications with Greer and the jogging she had taken to. She had no schedule, no role, and as such, was free to do as she wished aboard the ship.

Then things changed.

Asleep on her bed, in PT gear, she was thrown from the bunk and to the floor. Already awake and alert as she took flight, her arms were out to slow her fall, and she rolled into it. Rising to her feet and shaking her head, she ran to the computer, quickly inputting Greer's code.

It rang once, then twice, before he answered, looking disheveled with a new cut on his forehead. Blood flowed freely from it. Morgan was quick to question him. "What happened?"

He dabbed at the cut with something taken from off screen. "Deceleration from slipspace. Seems the carrier finally broke out and deposited us here. Keyes is still figuring things out, and Cortana is feeding me information as she finds it, but we're far from Earth. Get geared up in case of operations and meet me on the bridge. Greer out."

Morgan bit her lip, but she wasn't going to stand around like an idiot. Stripping the PT gear off, she started suiting up, sliding into the black undersuit and pressurizing it. She sighed as she felt the familiar form fitting tightness of it, like a glove. It was almost comforting to be suiting back up after two weeks of waiting.

The armor went on quickly, the Spartan having spent the first few days learning how to gear up alone and becoming adept at getting in and out quickly. Advances from the Mark V to the Mark VI meant suiting up was quicker and easier, and now, she appreciated that fact.

Ten minutes after sliding into the bodysuit, she was stepping through the doors to the bridge, and in the frontal viewport, she saw it. The giant ring hanging suspended in space, backdropped by a blue gas giant.

Greer turned to see her enter, and beckoned her forward. He stood by Keyes in the command chair. "We've come across another Halo, Lieutenant," he started.

Next to Keyes, on a pedestal, the blue form of Cortana sprung up, and she smiled at Six. It wasn't returned through the visor, and Cortana seemed confused, but said nothing as Keyes spoke up once again, looking back to the armored up Spartan.

"We're preparing for a hot drop, ODST forces led by Gunnery Sergeant Stacker will be launching in drop pods to make a foothold on the surface. You'll be dropping with him, before Sergeant Major Johnson brings vehicles and reinforcements in to push further. The Prophet of Regret is already settling his carrier over the ring. We'll board that ship and finish what we started at Earth."

"Yes ma'am," Six replied. She turned to leave, but a throat was cleared, one synthetic in nature. Six turned around, looking at Cortana, perched on her holopedestal. An eyebrow raised behind the visor, one that wasn't seen.

"You'll be taking me with you, given your intention is to board the ship," the AI answered.

Six didn't reply, merely taking the AI chip from the back of her helmet and holding it out. Cortana touched the ship and faded into it, the hollow center filling with blue light as Six reached back to put it into her neural lace once more.

The feeling of ice water being poured into her mind had the Spartan's hands clenching, struggling not to voice her displeasure at the sensation. Cortana's voice sounded in her head for the first time since Mombasa, sounding apologetic. "You'll get used to it eventually, it shouldn't take much more."

Six hummed her acknowledgment as she left the bridge, heading for an armory to get geared up and ready to drop. Cortana wouldn't let her trip be quiet, however. "Are you alright? You've seemed troubled."

Six's steps didn't slow. "You were looking through my files, weren't you?"

"You weren't exactly open with things."

"There was a reason for that, Cortana. It was classified, and my past has been opened up by ONI enough without you digging through it for more on how I work."

Cortana sounded somewhat defensive. "In my defense, I _am_ the leading cyber intrusion AI for the UNSC, and given whose brain I was made from..." She trailed off.

Six wanted to squeeze the bridge of her nose, but the helmet wouldn't allow it. "Stay. Out. Of. My. File." She ordered, her fists balling up without her willing it. She opened them, forcing her fingers to spread.

Cortana didn't answer immediately, but when she did, it calmed Six a little bit. "Alright, I'm sorry."

"Thank you, Cortana," Six replied as she turned to step into an armory. Several ODSTs stood inside, all of them looking up and seeing the Spartan enter. They all stared at her, and Six stared back, all of them caught in a stand off set in motion decades before by her predecessor in particular.

It was broken by Stacker, entering behind Six. "Get a move on! Gear up and get to your pods or I will throw you out this ship myself! Go, go, go!"

The ODSTs filed out at a run, deciding that Stacker's wrath was more intimidating than the 6' plus Spartan that looked back at him. A black gloved hand clapped her shoulder. "They don't like different," he started, and Six shrugged it off as Stacker stepped in front of her, going through the armory's stock.

"Run out of crayons?" She asked, pulling an MA5B down from the weapons racks and loading several magazines into her ammo pouches, and going for a BR55 to supplement it.

Stacker, grabbing another battle rifle from the same rack, smirked. "They were told when they came out of the womb that Spartans get all the purple ones, and most have been pissed off ever since. I, personally, prefer the red ones, so there's no problem between us."

Six chuckled despite herself. "Yeah, yeah, purple isn't my favorite either." Her smile stuck to her face, even as she finished her loadout and left the armory, Stacker walking side by side with her.

Now, it was down to business. "You done many hot drops, Lieutenant?" He asked, looking up to her and trying to see past the large shoulder armor.

She shrugged, the armor bobbing as she did. "Not for a couple years now, no, but I've got experience enough to make it through one."

"Perfect, I'll leave you to it then." The two entered the only drop hangar, where several ODSTs were doing final checks on their gear, making sure nothing was loose and there were no issues with packing. "Load it up, ladies!" Stacker called out.

The ODSTs began jumping into pods, finding where their names had been stenciled on. It was easy enough to paint over, rename pods based on a roster. They were single use anyway. Two were left on the far left, with Stacker's name on the second from the left, and a freshly painted "S-312" on the final one.

Removing the weapons from her armor, she set them into the racks on either side of her seat and settled in, closing the door and grabbing the control sticks next to either hip. The interior of the pod was blank and dark, save for the view screen that gave views from external cameras, command chat, and even a map of the area based on satellite footage from the parent vessel. Stacker's face filled part of the screen, an ODST helmet on his head for the first time since Six had met him.

"We're about to leave this ship, ladies and gentlemen, and we are going to plant our feet on solid ground. Then, after we've built a nice little beach head, we're gonna chase down that carrier, and plant our foot in that Prophet's ass! We will make our very own little mud hole, and if any of you Marines fall behind our resident Spartan, I'll be putting my foot in your ass next! Now, tell me, Marines, how will we get down there?"

All the ODSTs on the command channel answered in unison. "We go feet first sir!"

Stacker smiled. "Ooh-rah, Marines. Follow me in and try not to get shot down by anti-aircraft fire. Put a cork in your ass and hang on tight!"

A count down showed on Six's mission timer, showing a negative next to the rapidly dropping number. When it struck zero, Six's pod lurched, being thrown from the ship as the timer started ticking up. On her screen, a darkened view quickly became littered with stars, the rim of the ring below rising up along the bottom edge, before the air took on the blue hue of an atmosphere and the stars disappeared. A film of fire began to overtake the drop pod, and the buffeting of the atmosphere on the pod started to shake Six more and more. The temperature started to rise, but the Spartan thought nothing of it as her suit tried to compensate for the added heat.

The command view on her pod switched to show a drop zone directly below, as well as her projected trajectory. All the pods that had been launched were aligned on Stacker's own pod, and they tried to follow him through as the first stage of the drop went smoothly for Six, an air brake popping out of the top of the drop pod and slowing it down. The flames licking over the pod dying out.

Out of an assault force of 24 Marines, two of the pods failed to pop chutes, and continued on along their path unabated. At this rate, if their air brakes didn't pop, they'd be digging their own grave, something every Helljumper feared.

Stacker said nothing of it as the remaining pods disconnected from their air brakes and started to lurch forward again, picking up more speed but nothing along the lines of launch velocity. They had two minutes to touch down now, and the ground was rising up to meet them like an old friend. Purple fire started to lance up at them as Covenant anti air guns started to fire.

Six kept her breathing in check as another pod in front of her was hit, going up in flames and starting to spin, before breaking up entirely. She didn't see the marine within get thrown out as it ripped apart, but she hoped he'd at least died quickly.

"Touch down in 30 seconds Marines, hang on tight." Stacker spoke up for the first time since launch. The Covenant knew they were coming, and it'd be a hotter drop than he thought. Already, half of the assault force would be landing spread out over three square kilometers of what seemed like jungle, and at least a quarter of what had launched was dead or would be dead on landing. Others would land in ravines or bodies of water. Only five, including the Spartan, would be landing on target, something Stacker loathed thinking about.

Noble Six watched as the ground rushed up to meet her, and when it looked as if she would fall through the dirt and into Hell, she tightened up her entire body, grit her teeth, and got ready to do what she did best.

The motion stopped, and Six grunted as the explosive bolts primed. Two seconds passed and they blew, the front of the pod blowing off and impacting a rock face just ahead of her. Her MA5B was already in her hands as she popped from the pod and scanned the area. With nothing around, she grabbed her battle rifle and put it on her back.

A Grunt came hurtling around the rock face, plasma pistol glowing hot, and he spotted Six. The diminutive little alien never had a chance to open fire. Another door from a landed pod popped, crushing the Grunt against the rock face with little fan fare as Stacker himself exited the pod with his rifle at the ready. He took a moment to look at what he had done, before seemingly nodding in approval. Turning to Six, he gestured for her to follow, moving to the rock face where the Grunt had been crushed.

"My boys are scattered all along this ridge. Some are moving to join us now, others didn't make it. We're dead center on this landing zone, and we'll need to bring it down, Lieutenant. We'll need to move fast. One of them landed inside the temple up the hill, and there's no doubt in my mind they're swarming all over him. Can you get to him while the rest of us clear the place?"

"Roger," she answered, checking the magazine to make sure it was still in place on her rifle, and she swung around the cliff face. Elites in red and blue armor were scattered across the grassy opening, with Grunts running to and fro. A Jackal sniper was set up in the temple where even now, smoke was billowing from the top. The Jackal began to sight in on her, but she never got a chance to shoot at it.

A purple spray of blood spewed from its chest, having been shot in the back. An ODST with a cracked visor stepped up, quickly looked around, and saw Six. He waved to her, but didn't waste much time, choosing instead to climb to another level of the temple. Six found out why as more Grunts and an Elite took the level he had just been on, searching for him.

Six cursed and started to run for the temple, not wanting to leave the ODST on his own. They'd tear him apart in numbers like that, especially if the Elite got the drop on him in an enclosed area. Most of the aliens in the open space were distracted dealing with Stacker's other men as they moved in a group of three, dropping what aliens decided to engage them piecemeal.

Six made it to the foot of the temple, dodging fire that came from her right, and dove inside, coming up with her rifle at the ready. The lower level was clear, and a ramp led up to the second level where the Jackal sniper had been. Her rifle swept left and right, finding no targets, and she turned the corner to see an Elite looking up to the next level. Then she went for it.

The Elite was caught off guard by the sudden charge, but his plasma rifle came up firing, blue plasma splashing across Six's shields and dropping them nearly to nothing. She hit the Elite with all the force she had, launching it off the temple to the ground below where the impact popped its shields and left it defenseless and dazed. She brought her rifle up to finish it when a warning blared in her helmet. Her shields had dropped to nothing and a Grunt behind her held a charged plasma pistol. Her rifle came up to finish it before it finished her, but she wasn't quick enough for once.

The Grunt's plasma discharged, not out of its own will, but because a bullet from above had finished the stocky alien. Six dove as the ball of plasma flew past, igniting more warnings in the Spartan's ears as she scrambled for cover to let her shields recharge. She was afraid of a popped seal, not knowing the composition of what this alien ring world was. Her breathing had become labored in her ears as she realized how close she had come to getting fried.

Above, the ODST she had come to save, cradled his battle rifle, firing off single shots at the aliens down below. Not even a moment could be spared on the Spartan, not with his comrades below being pushed and pinned. Six unslung her battle rifle and joined in, putting holes in Grunts and Elites alike until the area was cleared, the ODSTs still below rushing to enter the safety of the temple.

Boots clapped against the ancient stone make up of the temple as the ODSTs slammed into place, one armed with a sniper rifle taking up a position at the top while the unfortunate ODST that had suffered the cracked visor and landed in the midst of the temple came down, reporting to Stacker.

On the lower level, light came in from the newly opened hole in the roof, and Stacker warned the ODSTs to be on the lookout for more Covenant as he gave the cracked helmet a once over. Pulling a canister from his pack, he grabbed the ODST by the side of the helmet. "Hold still now..." He muttered, pressing the nozzle of the canister to the crack running from the top to the bottom of the visor. The ODST didn't move, and Six watched as the canister did its job. It was a rapid repair canister, usually used by Spartans in the field in case of cracked visors, but it had trickled down to the shock troopers, given their method of transportation. The gel like substance that came from the nozzle began to solidify over the crack rapidly, hardening and filling it in just a few seconds as Stacker watched for issues.

Inside the helmet, the ODST had remained silent, giving a thumbs up when he could see again with no crack. Satisfied, Stacker took the bottom from the can, pulling what looked like a towel from it, and wiped the excess with it before tossing both the empty can and the towel. With his men back up to full strength, Stacker sent the final ODST to his position.

Six clapped the gunnery sergeant on the shoulder, tapping the side of her helmet. Stacker wordlessly switched to the command channel as Six started to speak. " _In Amber Clad_ , landing zone secured, we're ready for transport. AA coverage for the area seems to be minimal, given we only took fire from this location."

" _In Amber Clad copies, Noble Six. Sending Pelicans to the surface now. When your transportation arrives, you're to continue on through the natural rock formations to a bridge,_ _rolled up and unusable for the moment_ _. Drop the bridge and continue on to what looks like a grouping of ruins. Phantoms have been going back and forth since you dropped, likely moving troops and weapons into position. Orders are to clear them out and continue searching for the Prophet of Regret, In Amber Clad, out."_

Six tilted her visor, looking back to Stacker. His own silver visor nodded. "I heard 'em. We'll go with you, leave a few Marines behind to keep the landing area secure." Stacker turned from her almost immediately, already speaking into his squad channel. "Maldini, you're with me and the Lieutenant, the rest of you, stay here and support the Marines that get dropped off. Graham has command of the rest of you, and unless they drop an officer in with the rest, you'll be in charge."

The ODST, Maldini, sketched a salute, and another came forward. IFF read as Sergeant Renaldo Maldini. He spoke with a Spanish accent that was common to the colony world of Verge, and Old Spain on Earth, but his English was perfect given the UEG's adoption of English as the primary language. "I'll follow your lead, Sarge," he answered, and nodded to Six. It was likely he was one of those that had stared her down in the armory, and just as likely he held some form of animosity against the Spartans.

It didn't matter to Six. She would do her job and keep them alive if at all possible, but given the manner of their jobs and being on an artificial ring who knew how many light years from Earth, survival seemed slim, even for her. She doubted the trooper would let it interfere with the mission, given the situation.

She didn't have to muse on it for too long, the sound of jet wash filling the air as the Pelican hovered into the clearing and started disgorging Marines to hold the landing zone. The Warthog hanging from the tail section dropped to the ground with a bounce, settling on the uneven ground without a hitch. Six gestured to Stacker, already stepping back out into the sunlight. The light glinted off of her blue armor, still shiny and new looking after a wash to clear dust from the battles in Mombasa.

Stacker climbed into the passenger seat, his rifle rested against the windshield as Maldini took the gun, pulling one of the triggers and letting the barrels spin freely before he let go, satisfied with the gun's performance. Six took the driver's seat, pulling the wheel and putting the pedal down. Dirt was kicked up in a fantail as the Warthog found traction and the mighty tires started dragging it along towards their objective. Small sticks and rocks were swallowed up beneath the vehicle, Six barely noticing the bumps through her armor.

She turned left and the path led them through an opening between two cliffs, only to bring them face to face with a group of Jackals. They must not have been expecting vehicles, given their armament was mainly beam rifles. One had a shield, but it wouldn't matter. Maldini opened up with the chaingun in the back, the high caliber rounds meant for anti-aircraft duties shredding the Jackals and demolishing the shield that was up. The color went from a turquoise blue to an alarming red before shattering and leaving the Jackal behind it to get chewed up.

The Jackals had been posted on a cliffside overlooking a massive lake, several platforms moving from the mainland hidden behind a set of mountains ahead and a single larger platform stood tall in the clear blue waters. Maldini spoke up.

"Damn, Sarge, place looks mighty nice, don't it?"

Stacker didn't reply at first, seemingly thinking over it as his silver visor reflected the lake. "The first one did too, but now that place is a smoldering wreck thanks to the Master Chief."

"First one?" Six was the one to respond this time, before Maldini could ask any questions.

Stacker nodded, frowning inside of his helmet. "Yeah, Forerunner ring, _Pillar of Autumn_ went down on one just like it after we escaped from Reach. I wasn't privy to much of the information, but things got bad near the end, then next thing I know, everything was going up in flames around our ears."

Cortana, listening to the conversation, spoke to Six alone as Stacker went quiet. "It's another Halo, a weapon that, if used, would kill every sentient being in the galaxy. It's also what the Covenant's entire religion revolves around. Lighting the ring to send them on a so called 'Great Journey'. Of course, given that it would cause a galaxy wide extinction, we've got more than a little incentive to stop that from happening."

Six's gut fell into the floor board and she thought she was going to trip on it. "It _what?"_ She asked, a frown etching itself in her pale features. "You didn't think to tell me this before we dropped?"

Cortana huffed. "There wasn't enough time to give you the full story, and given you got a warm welcome, it didn't come up."

Six suppressed a sigh, shaking her head. "You need to keep me appraised of this type of thing, Cortana. Tell me everything you've got. What did the Forerunners need some giant extinction weapon for?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," She answered.

"Look, we're fighting an alien menace 27 years deep and currently taking a scenic drive across another alien _ringworld_ meant to genocide an entire galaxy. I think I'd be willing to hear you out on why it's here."

"Fair enough. The last ring had something on it, something sealed away. Captain Keyes found what it was, thinking it was a Covenant weapons cache. Turns out it was a parasitic hive mind hell bent on turning everything into what could essentially be seen as the living dead. The Captain was infected and they started to pool the collective information of every single victim that had been infected, and the infection was trying to get off the ring. We called it The Flood."

Six was silent for a time, and Cortana was beginning to believe her point had been made, when she heard the other woman sigh. "Great, as if things couldn't get any worse," she muttered.

"It gets worse. The rings were meant to fire and wipe everything sentient out, not to kill the infection. It was meant to kill their _food_. The Flood would have starved, but samples were kept on the ring, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was another source of infection on this one somewhere. I'm scanning with _In Amber Clad_ 's sensors and cameras, but nothing concrete yet."

Six's hands gripped the wheel a bit tighter, the steering wheel creaking under her grip. Things were suddenly far more dangerous. The _Autumn_ had most certainly been carrying a complement of Helljumpers, and if even those had been overwhelmed, she would have her work cut out for her.

Six's heart rate spiked as the realization of what kind of enemy could be on the ring, one that could consume all the Covenant forces on the ring, then the UNSC, and then spread out with the knowledge of every single person. If corpses were able to be reanimated, then of course it would be an uphill battle. At least their name had been appropriate, and Six was more than a little afraid at the implications that this whole conversation threw up. Either the Covenant fires this ring and wipes out all life in the Galaxy, or the Flood wipes it out by consuming all of it.

"Ma'am?" Stacker, in the passenger seat, had seen the change in the normally rock steady vitals. "You alright?"

Six kept it to herself, not daring to bring it up around even him. "Affirmative. I'm green." Her tone put an end to the questions that the vital signs had brought up, and ahead, the bridge rose up into the air over a bunker like control station. A ravine split this side from the next, and with a Wraith on the opposite side turning to engage, she turned the wheel and headed behind the bunker. Two Ghosts sat unmanned outside, but not for long. A pair of Elites rushed outside, beelining for the Ghosts.

Maldini wasted no time in unloading on them, one of the Elites taking a round in the leg and having it swept out from under him. Six gunned the throttle and headed for the Ghosts, snatching a grenade from her belt and tossing it before jerking the wheel to the right and heading away from the Ghosts. One of them went active as the grenade went off, getting flipped over and dumping its new occupant to the ground. The Elite that had gone down first started opening fire, tucked into cover near the door way as Maldini continued to pour fire at him. Six expertly pulled the wheel left and right, dodging between rocks, rises in the terrain, and the scything blue plasma fire.

The Warthog's engine grumbled and roared as Six's boot made small adjustments to the throttle, partly to keep from flipping them during the turns she took and partly to keep the Covenant's fire from being accurate. A large blue explosion went off where the Warthog had been seconds before as the Wraith's plasma mortar landed. Six made a decision. They wouldn't be able to keep moving in the open like this for long. The Hog would take a bad hit eventually.

Turning for the bunker, she accelerated, wedging it in between the door and where one of the Elites had taken cover. It warbled in surprise as the Warthog invaded its hiding space, only to be cut off as one of the wheels sucked it under and came to rest on its chest. The other came under fire immediately from Maldini as it went for the Ghost again. It knew that combat in close quarters like this was suicide, but it mattered little as the heavy caliber rounds tore through the shielding and cored it. The Elite came to rest slumped over the Ghost's seat, not getting back up. Six had already leapt from the vehicle, MA5B in hand as she ducked into the bunker. Inside, several Grunts chittered and a red armored Elite roared a challenge, twin plasma rifles blazing in hand.

The MA5B, a heavy workhorse, was meant for short to medium range, and with a 60 round magazine, it did its job well. Granted, anything more than a hundred feet out would be inefficient. Then again, this room was only ten feet in diameter. Six merely pointed the gun at the Elite and held down the trigger.

The rifle roared in her hands, and she felt it buck against her shoulder as it spit most of its magazine into the Elite's face. His shields flared and dropped as plasma hit Six's own, bringing her dangerously close to her own popping. Luckily for her, the Elite was filled with lead soon enough, and the Grunts ran to get out of the close quarters. None of them wanted to fight a Spartan within arms reach. She let them go, the sound of the Hog's gun going up outside and finishing them as they came out.

A pedestal in the center of the room flashed, likely the controls for the bridge. The Wraith across the ravine had stopped firing, having lost sight of them. Six looked over the controls, feeling some familiarity with the Forerunner script that passed over them. "Cortana, can you translate this?"

"Already on it, Lieutenant."

Across the pedestal, the words began to change in front of her eyes as her visor started to display the English translations, and she saw what she needed. Pressing her fingers to what said 'Lower bridge', she felt it rumble into action. The bridge began to roll down the side and flatten across the ravine before coming to a stop. The Wraith, seeing that it would be needed again, went back to shelling the area, but it wouldn't last.

A missile came from where the landing zone had been set up, hitting the Wraith dead center and blowing it to hell. A Pelican was coming into view and spinning around, having been what killed the Wraith with one of its Anvil missiles. A Scorpion hung from the rear fuselage, dropping and sinking into the earth a little before the Pelican veered off. Six's eye was caught as a pedestal to the side began to broadcast audio, an alien in a throne like chair coming into view.

"That's the Prophet of Regret, Six," Cortana pointed out. "He's giving what seems to be a sermon, mostly standard Covenant liturgy and religious babble, but I'll translate it if he says anything interesting."

Six watched for a few moments, taking a snapshot of the target for future reference, and turned on her heel. The sunlight glinted on her armor as she stepped back outside, Stacker and Maldini still inside of the Hog, although Stacker had taken over the driver's seat.

"Johnson brought us a toy to play with, Lieutenant. Figured you'd want first dibs on it," He called out to her. Six nodded her head in appreciation as Stacker backed the Warthog up, setting it in a position where it was still hidden from the other side of the gorge just in case. Six jumped onto the tread pod, stepping over to the Scorpion's driver hatch and dropping in as it slid sealed over her. The Scorpion's engine roared to life before settling down into a steady rumble, the tracks squealing as she made it accelerate over the soft earth beneath it.

The transition to the bridge was different, the track's creaking louder over the harder surface as Ghosts came rocketing out of an artificial cave to the right. The Scorpion's gun traversed and unloaded, hitting the first Ghost dead center and tearing it apart with an armor piercing shell. The second Ghost was lit up by tracer fire from the Warthog, sending the Ghost skittering to the side as the antigrav tried to compensate for the added force. It mattered little as one of the small pods just in front of the rider's legs was hit and the Ghost went up in an explosion that threw the rider clear, sending him over the gorge and to the water below.

The Scorpion kept moving, with the sound of the Warthog's engine being feathered by Stacker to the rear. Six entered the tunnel ahead and was shrouded in darkness as the sunlight was cut out. The interior matched the architecture they had been seeing, even looking mossy as more Ghosts came skittering out to take on the tank. Six made short work of them and continued on without further issues, until she sent the tank back into the sunlight. They were on a path traversing up a cliff face. Mounted guns were set up on two positions up the path, and the main gun demolished both with only minimal scoring on the armor plating.

Another path through a tunnel was left filled with corpses and destroyed Ghosts, before an open plaza with twin emplacements and more infantry support followed close behind. Six made her way through the opened path, with the Warthog just behind her taking cover behind the Scorpion's armored bulk.

Another plaza lay just beyond, this one with a large structure in the center that led deeper into the mountain it was strapped to. Six started going to work, using the Scorpion's gun to clear the place out before the Warthog roared around the corner and into the open terrain, gun already firing on whatever stepped in front of it. A pair of Ghosts tried to intercept the Hog, but Six wouldn't let them.

"Lieutenant, you'll need to get up to the upper levels of the structure, scans show it leads further into the mountainside and the structures in the lake. That'll be where we find more information on the Prophet. Covenant are swarming all over the place," Cortana pointed out.

"Affirmative," Six answered, climbing from the tank. It wouldn't be able to make it up to the upper levels, and it had done its job well. She moved quick, finding her way up through ramps and ledges, before coming over the top. Below, the Warthog came to a stop and both ODSTs left it to follow after her.

Peeking over the top ledge, Six saw a red armored Elite, and it turned to see her climb onto the ledge. It went to kick her and she grabbed its long leg, pulling just enough to throw it off balance and make it fall to the stone below. A sickening crack sounded as its armor hit the ground, where Maldini put a burst of fire into it to keep it down.

Grunts and another blue armored Elite attempted to slow the Spartan's advance, but she would have none of it, gunning the lot down before reloading, tucking herself into cover and snapping another magazine into the rifle. She stepped back out into the hail of fire and returned it just as Stacker and Maldini got into position, a few feet behind her. Her shields soaked up plasma fire as she continued to hold the trigger down. Her shields fell before she finally ducked back into cover, but a glancing hit from a plasma pistol turned the armor on her right shoulder pauldron a dark black, scoring it and leaving a shallow pit in the rounded section.

Six cursed as she saw an alarm blare in the top right corner, her shield's own alarm wailing before Cortana cut the volume slightly. "Careful, Lieutenant, there's two of us in here, y'know," Cortana chided, but Six didn't answer.

The Spartan stepped back out as her shields recharged, the incoming fire having slacked off under the accurate fire of Stacker and Maldini, who had both started moving up. Stacker gave her a glance as he passed, a nod, and then one returned by Six as she advanced just behind them.

The structure led through to an open area, but no enemies were inside, having rushed out to help their comrades. Another pedestal, showing the Prophet's ongoing sermon, stood at the opposite side of the clearing, audio playing loudly enough for all to hear it. Six made a hand sign, two fingers curved slightly, pointed forward and bobbed twice, and the ODSTs quickly spread out with Six making her way up the middle.

As they closed, Cortana translated the audio coming in, and Six held up a closed fist to have the ODSTs stop where they were. The two did, but took cover. Six stepped towards the projector, listening as the Prophet spoke.

"In a gesture of peace and reconciliation, the Prophets promised to find the means of the Forerunners' transcendence, and to share this knowledge with the Elites. The Elites promised to defend the Prophets as they searched. A simple arrangement that has become our binding Covenant!"

Cortana hummed, and Six could almost see the AI crossing her arms. "Transcendence, huh? More like mass suicide," she quipped.

Six frowned, moving past the pedestal. "The Covenant has to know exactly what the rings do. Are they really so fanatically blind?" She asked, turning into a mountain pass that was barely wide enough for her to walk, only a foot to either side.

"Possibly, but they never really learned how things 'work'. They're more imitators than innovators, so to speak," she answered.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that of all the technology they've reverse engineered, it's mostly unknown how it works. Engineers are in place that seemingly know how most tech works naturally, but the main species of the Covenant, and especially the leadership castes, just take what works and go off of it. It's why you rarely see anything new even this late into the war."

Six snorted. "We've been using Warthogs for the last two hundred years, I can't really say we're any better."

Cortana sounded amused. "Where do you think your energy shielding came from?"

"That's a given, but you know what I mean," Six huffed, shaking her head as she passed further into the small path. Sunlight could be seen ahead, scattered through foliage.

Six stepped out into the light, once again walking on the tan colored stone that seemed to make up the Forerunner structures on the ring's surface. She looked around, using her visor's magnifiction to get a bead on anything that was in the area. Already she could see a Jackal sniper walking around on the roof of one of the structures that jutted out over the lake, and another to the left on the opposite side.

Putting her MA5B on her back, she pulled out the battle rifle, gesturing for Stacker to come forth. He looked at her, and followed her finger as she pointed to the Jackal on the left. "On my mark," she ordered, and sighted in on the Jackal to the right. With Stacker taking aim and readying himself, she counted down.

At the end of the countdown, two bangs erupted, echoing off of the cliff walls as the bullets fired went straight for the snipers, hitting one in the chest and the other in the leg. The chest shot killed the Jackal outright, while the other Jackal got a clipped leg. Losing its balance, it fell to the ground, dropping its rifle. Stacker cursed and sighted in again before firing and putting the Jackal down for good.

Drones started coming over the roof, alerted by the gunfire. Even as Six started to pull the trigger again and again, dropping several Drones in the swarm, Cortana spoke up. "Still no word about _In Amber Clad_ on the Covenant battlenet. It's odd, the Covenant knew we made landfall, but they don't seem to consider us a very serious threat. Boy, are they in for a big surprise."

Six made no comment, advancing as the final Drone was brought down by Maldini. She started down the ramp to the building that they had dropped the Jackals on, crossing over the lake below now as they left land behind. Maldini glanced over the edge, whistling at the drop. "Long way down, Sarge," he muttered.

"Put a lid on it, Helljumper. Don't go gettin' distracted now," Stacker ordered, helmeted head glued to his scope as he looked for any more snipers. Six was doing the same, but her motion tracker flared red on the rim. Something was waiting for them.

"We've got a welcoming party, take up positions on the door. I'll handle whatever's inside," She said, with Stacker giving an affirmative and turning to watch the way they had come as Six ducked inside.

Another pedestal showing the Prophet of Regret stood in the center of the main room, waving its arms and chanting in that unfamiliar tongue. "Lieutenant! Honor guards!"

Six had just enough time to drop to the ground and avoid a sword that would have decapitated her. Going down on her back, her rifle pointing skyward at the Elite in ornamental armor. She pulled the trigger as fast as she could, the heavy rounds form the battle rifle at such close range dropping the shields quickly before punching through armor and killing the Elite.

She didn't have time to get up, swinging her rifle as the other Elite went to stab the downed Spartan through the chest. Her breathing had picked up, and everything seemed to slow down, as if moving through water. She could hear her heart beating in her ears, the rush of blood in them as the sword came down.

Her rifle made contact with the Elite's arm, pushing the tip of the energy sword off by just an inch and letting it dig into the stone below. The rifle was discarded as the off balance Elite caught an armored elbow to the face, dazing it. Her feet came in as her legs bent, before she pushed with the force of a million springs and launched the Elite away.

It hit the wall behind it, shaking its head to clear the dizziness, but it had no time to move as an angry Spartan fell on it. The honor guard didn't stand a chance as a fist grabbed its neck and squeezed, the other pulling back before punching the Elite several times. Mandibles broke, teeth were launched clear, and the ornate head dress was misshapen as Six kept punching, again and again, until the Elite struggling in her hand went limp and was dropped to the ground.

Six's breathing, still heavy, slowly began to regulate. Cortana, watching every second of what had just happened, made a note of it. The Spartan IIs, the Master Chief included, had always been lethal and brutal in their own way, using whatever they could at their disposal. This Spartan, though, was different, something Cortana continued to notice in the Spartan's behavior and fighting style. Closing to arms reach was her forte, and she was brutally efficient at it, but the way that she worked to dispatch the Covenant was… messy. Shotguns, fists, knives, nothing was off limits for her, and Cortana made a reminder for herself to continue her digging when they got back to Earth. _If_ they got back to Earth.

Six bent to pick her rifle up, reloading it as her breathing finally stabilized. Cortana, having been listening to the Prophet's sermon, heard something that cemented what she had heard. "Lieutenant, the Prophet has loose lips. The Prophet of Regret is planning to activate Halo!"

Six felt a chill go up her spine. "Are you sure?"

She snapped her fingers and the Prophet's speech was once more translated into English. "I shall light this holy ring, release its cleansing flame, and burn a path into the divine beyond!"

Another snap and Cortana sounded almost matter of fact. "Pretty much."

Six bit the inside of her cheek, wanting to sigh and rub her temples, but knew that it would do no good. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.


	8. A Prophecy Foretold

"Stacker, Maldini, close it up! We're moving out!" Six called back to the pair of Helljumpers that had been watching her back, and they didn't want to keep the lady waiting.

Stepping into the temple, bathed in the light from the hologram of Regret, Maldini saw the carnage that had been unleashed on the honor guards in the room, and he didn't miss the Elite laying slumped against the wall, still bleeding from a mulched face. He noticed that there were no bullet wounds on this alien, and that Six's right gauntlet was still dripping bits of blood. She caught his eye, the two visors looking at each other, before she shook the gore from her hand without another word.

Moving on as if the exchange hadn't happened, Six started to walk, the two Helljumpers following wordlessly as Six opened a channel to _In Amber Clad_. "Commander, we have a problem."

Keyes came on immediately, not sounding surprised in the least. "So I've heard. Given what we know about the first Halo, they'll likely need something called an index to activate it. If they haven't already found it, we have a chance to stop them from lighting the place. I've located a library similar to the one that the Master Chief found on the first Halo, and that's likely where we'll find the index if they work the same way."

Six held her rifle at the ready as she peered around the corner and into the next area, one that showed another view of the lake and surrounding platforms. "Should I continue tracking the Prophet?" Six asked.

"Yes, and kill him if you get the chance. We're not taking any chances with this if we don't have to. Capture is no longer on the board. I'll go for the index, you finish off the Prophet. With him out of the picture, the Covenant forces here may get thrown into disarray."

"Yes ma'am, I'll get it done." Six went to cut the channel, but Keyes had one more thing to say.

"Sergeant Johnson is picking up the two ODSTs with you. We'll need every man we can get, and if what I have of your file is correct, I believe you'd work better on your own."

Six felt a pang of something she didn't quite understand, but she shoved it away. She'd be alone again, save for Cortana. A fragment of a memory came back to her.

_That lone wolf stuff? It stays behind. We're a team_

Six shook her head, trying to clear it away, but responded quickly. "They'll hold position and await pickup here, then. Noble Six, out."

She turned to Stacker, and he already knew what the plan was, listening in on the channel himself. "Heard it all, Lieutenant. We'll hang back for now." She nodded and went to set out again, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She looked back at Stacker, whose face plate had been depolarized to show the man beneath the helmet. "I know how Spartans are, but be safe out there. It's too late in the war to be losing any more of you, and if you're going for that Prophet, it'll be more dangerous than usual."

Six stared back at him for a few seconds, more old emotions coming into play she didn't have words for, before her voice finally found the words. "I'll be alright, Gunny. You should be careful too, given where you two will be going."

Stacker didn't say anything further, but stepped back and let the woman go. Six took a second longer to look at him, before she turned away and left the temple.

Cortana noticed the change in vitals that registered on Noble Six's neural interface, and she frowned at what it implied. Six wasn't very happy with being told to continue on alone, but deep down inside, she knew that their chances of dying escalated significantly the closer they got to that Prophet. Cortana kept silent until the yellow blips disappeared off of the back of Six's motion tracker.

"They'll have that Prophet under heavy guard, including more honor guards. They're the best of the best, and only seen when a Prophet is on the field. From what we know of them, they're drawn from the Zealot Corps, so they're definitely outfitted like Zealots. Better training, better gear, hardcore veterans."

"Zealot class? Figures. The two in there didn't seem to have it, given how easily they went down," Six replied, MA5B tucked into her shoulder as she skirted around a corner to see a bridge leading to the next structure. Nothing was there, either having scattered at the sound of the honor guards going down, or never having been there in the first place.

"I take it you've fought enough Zealots to be comfortable gauging their strength?" Cortana asked, interested now.

"Fought plenty on Reach. The relay at Visegrad went down and Noble was deployed to find out why. A researcher was found dead and the consoles controlling the place were shot to pieces. Jorge saw the researcher's daughter was hidden away, and a Marine had been taken down at some point. Right before we got a comms line to Colonel Holland, they showed up." Six responded, checking every nook and cranny for possible Covenant, even though her motion tracker was free of contacts.

"Them? I take it you mean Zealots?"

"Yes, a team of three. Dr. Halsey herself seemed to be of the mindset that teams of Zealots will deploy to planets before invasions, looking for Forerunner artifacts and generally making asses of themselves while they ruin communications sites and other high value targets," Six explained.

A bird, or some other type of winged animal called out, and Six ignored it. "I see… I hadn't been informed of that. It's good to know, for further engagements. What else happened?"

"Winter Contingency, and everything was downhill from there. More Zealots deployed near the end, when you were being transported. A team of them took out Emile, dropping the MAC gun. That's when I chose to stay behind."

Cortana hummed, remembering the Spartan's decision to sacrifice herself for the _Autumn_. The fact that she had survived at all, much less in in position to be sent along with the _In Amber Clad_ , spoke volumes of Noble Six.

Neither said anything more, soaking in the silence that was left behind as Six went through more of the old looking structures. Six took glances around, searching for possible targets, but also taking some time to admire the ring world they had been put on. It seemed almost impossible, that a race would be able to create something so large. Looking up, the ring could be seen completing its circle high above.

"You know," Cortana spoke up, sounding thoughtful. "It almost seems like the Forerunners created new structures around the old ones, as if to protect them. Of course, that's just me spitballing. I'd need to study them to be sure."

Six listened to the AI go on. She hadn't been happy with Cortana's prying, nor had she been happy knowing that her file had been spread like a deck of cards, with Cortana knowing all the numbers, but the AI had been of more use than she had expected. She felt faster, given Cortana's assistance in interfacing the armor with her neural interface. Even more, Six never would have known about the Prophet's objective being to light Halo. For all of Cortana's quirks and flaws, she was more than worth her weight in gold.

The line of buildings continued on, losing more and more elevation with each ramp, and the lack of any enemies had Six on edge. It was too quiet after having to fight the whole way here through heavy defenses, and Six had long ago learned to trust her instincts. They were more often than not all Six had to rely on.

A gondola rose out of the water, held aloft by the long, thick support that disappeared into the blue depths. Six frowned as she looked it over. The gondola was spacious enough, and had multiple levels, but it would be easy to take down if the Covenant brought heavy weapons to bear, or if they were waiting in ambush for her. The Covenant had always favored frontal assaults, but their ambushes were deadly.

Six stepped onto the platform without coming under a fusillade of fire, and let herself breathe a sigh of relief as Cortana marked the control panel on her HUD. She went for it, the symbols already translating as she got sight of the text on it, and pressed the button to start the transition to the other side of the lake.

In the distance, another gondola started moving, and would meet her half way. Six narrowed her eyes, pulling the battle rifle out and slinging the MA5B over her shoulder, the hefty weight clamping to her back a reassuring feeling. A kneeling stance was perfect, given the waist high walls surrounding the gondola, and the battle rifle's scope came up as she got eyes on the other gondola.

"Cortana? See anything on there?"

"Hold on, I'm extending your motion tracker's range… No, I don't see anything. It's still a little too far out, but even then, the gondolas are both moving. That'd make it a bit more difficult to get an accurate reading."

There was no harm in asking, Six figured. The gondola kept coming, regardless of her suspicions of enemies lying in wait. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, even against the form fitting underlayer she wore. It was a feeling that rivaled pits in her gut, one that she had trusted time and again, and it had always worked out in one way or another.

The gondola she stood on shifted beneath her feet, beginning to slow down, and the other gondola mirrored the actions of the first. Six cursed under her breath as the two gondolas stopped right next to each other, and true to fashion, several Elites sprang up and started unloading on her, using the small wall for cover.

Slamming to the ground and tucking into a roll, Six came back up behind one of the taller support beams for the upper level. Cortana's voice rang in her ears as she popped out of cover, assault rifle tucked against her shoulder as she left the battle rifle on the ground.

"So much for peace and quiet."

Six would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been using them to aim. The MA5B barked like a rabid dog, slamming against her shoulder in an almost reassuring pattern of fire as an Elite's shields went out and he got filled with holes. Plasma splashed against her shields several times and the alarm blared in her ears. Her own shielding dropped and she was forced to retreat back into her cover.

"Six!" Cortana called out to her, alarm in her synthetic tones. Six's motion tracker shrank rapidly, and she saw two red dots closing quickly. With a curse, she started to back away from the corner she had hidden behind, and her shield gave off a warning that it was charging, the golden lattice reforming around her slowly.

It wasn't fast enough to recharge to full, and the first Elite came around the corner with its rifle ready. Six pulled the trigger back again, the magazine just under half empty at this point. It would have to do.

The Elite's shield popped and the rifle clicked empty as the second Elite came around the corner. Six could hear her heartbeat thundering through her ears as the world slowed down. She dodged to the left as plasma came hurtling towards her from both rifles, and she reared back before launching the assault rifle at the shieldless Elite.

It hit him like a train, but wasn't enough to kill him, unfortunately. Six sprinted after her thrown weapon, her arm wrapping around the dazed Elite's neck and squeezing it into the crook of her elbow. Her other arm grabbed at the Elite's weapon hand, forcing it to pull the trigger against its ally.

The other Elite, to his credit, didn't hesitate to start trying to melt through Six's new meat shield. Her hostage began to shake and warble out in agony as the plasma started to eat away at his armor and flesh. Six's grip stayed strong as she continued to force more fire down her other target's throat, almost literally. His shields popped before he, too, started to suffer from multiple nasty burns. He went down not long after, but Six's target had long gone limp in her arm.

The plasma rifle was stolen away from his now limp fingers, and the corpse dropped like a sack of potatoes. Returning to get her battle rifle, she slid it onto her back, but the assault rifle she had thrown was nowhere to be found. It had likely ricocheted off of the Elite she threw it at and went over the edge.

Biting her cheek, she frowned at the loss of the weapon. She doubted she would find another. Traversing to the other gondola, Six felt it lurch beneath her feet, and it set into motion towards the distant temple.

"You seem to be more than a little fond of getting in close, Lieutenant," Cortana mused aloud, her voice coming from seemingly nowhere. It was a fact Six still hadn't gotten completely used to.

"It's effective," Six replied in a deadpan.

"It's effective at getting you killed, too."

"It hasn't gotten me killed yet.

" _Yet_ ," Cortana shot back. Her voice took on another tone, something akin to worry. "You know one day, you're gonna get in the face of something that you can't bludgeon or stab to death." Six was silent, apparently not planning on responding. "I know you can hear me, I just saw the activity in your brain light up."

Six frowned, wanting to look at the AI that was chiding her, but kept her eyes on the temple. "Maybe, but that day isn't today. Elites and Brutes don't work together if they can help it, given what we know about them."

"They worked together on Reach."

"They likely saw Reach as our homeworld, given how defended it was and how numerous we were on the planet. Of course they'd send everything they had at us. Besides, they deployed separately."

Cortana groaned, with Six feeling a bit more of an icy sensation in her mind. "My point stands. There's more to just being 'effective' that has you get so close. Spartan IIs have always fought at range if they could, fighting and falling back if the enemy got too close. You, on the other hand, like to fire and close, throwing your guns or knives at them, even getting into _fist fights_ with them. Why?"

Six's hands squeezed the rifle she had, biting the inside of her cheek. "I'm not a II, you know at least that from prying through my files."

"I know you're not a Spartan II, Lieutenant, but that doesn't answer my question."

Six snapped, but her voice didn't raise, instead dropping into a tone that seemed more like resignation to the thoughts that had plagued her since Noble's light had been snuffed out. "Because I'm fighting to win a war I was _made_ to die in, Cortana. You know as well as I do that I shouldn't be here, on this ring. I shouldn't be with you. I should have died in Aszod with Carter and Emile. The Spartan IIs were meant to fight and win. But me? My brothers and sisters? We were made to trade away our lives for seconds, minutes, hours, whatever we could do to stop the Covenant just a little longer. To keep them at bay long enough for the others to regroup."

Cortana was quiet, several seconds of silence filling the air as the gondola continued along its path, the temple getting closer with every passing moment.

When she finally spoke up, Six felt another pang in her chest, that feeling she couldn't quite capture or give a name to. "I never knew what the overall goal of the IIIs were, only getting bits and pieces of them in passing as I trawled the UNSC's databanks. ONI hid them deep. The IIs were… unethical, immoral, something that should have been the last of its kind, but they were ultimately what's kept us afloat this long, I think. Kidnapping children? Stealing them away from their families in the night? It was wrong. But this? Making Spartans whose objective is suicide?" She trailed off again.

Six shrugged. "It was what was offered to me. I didn't have any parents, my homeworld was a ball of glass, and I would have just been dumped into an orphanage and left there. At least this gave me purpose. I got lucky, in a sense, that I was pulled out. I saw the files not long after I was reassigned to ONI. Beta Company, the Spartan company I was part of, was wiped out in a single battle. Almost 300 Spartans killed in the destruction of a refueling complex."

"I see..." Cortana's questioning fell silent as the details of Six's past were nearly thrown in her face, and Cortana, while she couldn't feel emotions, pinged her morals and ethics subroutines. They both came back distressingly negative, and the AI filed the information away to try and worm out of Greer if she could.

Six didn't continue the conversation, the gondola stopping against the rim of the temple she stood in front of. She checked that her battle rifle was loaded and, seeing the reassuring 36 lit in blue on the screen below the scope, stepped off of the gondola and onto the temple's rim. Ahead, a ramp led up to an open pathway into the structure, one that seemed to be the only direction to go. Another temple stood in the distance, but without another gondola connecting it with this one, Six would be forced to go inside and hope to find a way over.

"Be careful, Lieutenant. We don't know what could be waiting for us," Cortana warned.

Six didn't respond, the sound of a gun opening up in the distance as what was likely a Warthog opened up. Off to her right, she could see the angry yellow tracer fire climbing into the sky. Was the Covenant focusing on the Marine presence elsewhere on the ring? It would explain the lack of opposition she was facing now. It didn't make much sense, the Covenant leaving lanes of approach open like this. The Spartan made a note of it, walking up the ramp and into the temple as more tracer fire went up towards a massive structure bathed in the golden glow of hundreds of lights, hidden behind a wall far too tall for anything Human to scale.

* * *

Noble Six had grown wary of the elevators she had taken to get where she was. Elevators weren't supposed to take you into water and then swim around like fish. She pursed her lips as the second elevator rose from the water, and listened as Cortana continued to trawl the Covenant battle net.

"Something just came through, very well encrypted, went through the carrier and bounced down to the surface. Listen to this: 'Your haste has jeopardized the fulfillment of our Covenant, threatened our grand design. That you shall be spared a public display of our contempt is thanks only to Mercy and his wise counsel.'"

The AI hummed as Mercy was the final piece of the puzzle. "Truth, Mercy, and Regret, three Prophet Hierarchs. Killing Regret should shake up the Covenant's leadership, but if you ask me, it sounds like you'll be doing Truth a favor."

Six let her shoulders bob in a shrug as she stepped out of the elevator and back into another badly lit temple. It wasn't long until sunlight started to peer through again from a door. In the distance, stepping back out onto the outer platform of the temple, Six saw a larger, more ornate building. Above it, the assault carrier that the _In Amber Clad_ tracked hung in the sky, a watchful guardian.

The Spartan made for the edge, where a gondola sat waiting for her to ride to the end of this hunt, with Cortana sounding more worried as another transmission came through. "More back and forth messages between the tower and the carrier, talking about 'Human interference' and the presence of 'The Demon'. I think they know you're coming… and something more, something about 'The Holy City', likely referencing the Covenant's city of High Charity."

Six set the gondola in motion and moved to the upper level, hunkering down behind one of the waist high walls for cover. Her battle rifle had long been discarded, having run dry, and been replaced with a Covenant carbine. The plasma rifle had also been discarded several times, replaced by another soon after. "High Charity? Never heard of it."

Cortana seemed shocked by the news. "Really now? ONI keeps you locked up tight, don't they?" Six didn't respond. "High Charity is a space station used by the Covenant, like a mobile seat of power. We've never seen it, but its been referenced in Covenant data banks. It's always moving, too, so we've never been able to track it down. If it's coming here, I don't even want to think of the odds stacked against us."

Six frowned, watching as a gondola in the distance started to move. Magnifying her visor, she saw the temple was filled with Shade turrets and multiple static defenses. The gondola, on the other hand, was full of Elites wearing the closed visors and jump packs given to Rangers. With a curse, she put the carbine's barrel against the wall, getting as low as she could and waiting for it to come in range.

It was still over a hundred feet away when a red armored ranger rocketed into the air, pointing towards Six's gondola. It was time. Six sighted in on him and pulled the trigger several times, the radioactive fuel rod cells punching into the Elite's chest with enough force to cause his trajectory in the air to waver, and after eight shots, his shields dropped and the carbine tore into his armor. The jet pack ceased operating as one shot managed to pierce through him and hit the rear armor and subsequently the pack. The Elite began to fall to the water below, not a sound coming from him as the other Elites took to the sky. Four of them were coming and Six started targeting another while they were still far enough out.

Another one went down, and a third lost his shields before they were on her. The two with full shields surrounded the lone Spartan, and she tore the plasma rifle from her hip, holding it in one hand and the carbine in her other. The plasma rifle bucked as it started unloading into the Elite on her right, and its shields went down quickly and left the armor to take the brunt of the plasma, even while the carbine in her left hand coughed and spit fuel cells at the other. The first Elite went down in a pile of melted armor and bubbling skin, and Six's shields popped as she started to fall back.

A bolt of plasma hit her chest plate, scorching it and burning a divot about an inch deep into the right side. The armor taking the hit felt like a punch to the chest, and Six cursed as she felt time slow down. She dropped the carbine and continued to fire at the Elite that had hidden behind one of the support pillars with her plasma rifle. Tearing a captured plasma grenade from her belt, she side armed it and the Elite dove away, disappearing.

Breathing quickly, Six ripped the knife on her hip from its sheathe and sprinted forward, reaching the support pillar in a blue as the Elite came back out to resume fire. Its jaws split in obvious surprise and Six took her opening, bringing the knife up in a flash of movement, only to bury it in the roof of the Elite's mouth. A weak sounding scream came from its throat, and just as soon as she had pushed the knife in, it was back out.

She shook the blade, blood flying off of it and landing on the ground, and went to put it back in its sheathe, but she had no time.

"Lieutenant!" Cortana, as fast as she was, was too late. The remaining Ranger came down on top of Six, and the surprised Spartan went down on her chest. The wind was knocked out of her as she went down, and she felt a pair of strong hands grab onto either side of her helmet, attempting to rip it free, and possibly her head with it

Acting on pure instinct, she pulled in what air she could and choked out, "Cortana!" The AI, buried deep within Six's neural lace, knew exactly what she wanted. The helmet release caught and the Elite pulled it off and lost its balance, but remained straddled on the Spartan's back. Six took the opening and hoped it worked.

Her elbow came back into the Elite's midsection, once and then again, and the Elite went down. Scrambling to get up, she launched herself onto the Elite's chest and punched it in the throat. A strangled cough sounded from within the closed helmet, and Six snarled as she punched the reflective visor, cracking it. Another punch broke it into several shards and the fist carried on through, before hitting flesh.

Bringing her fist back one more time, she gave a roar and put all of her strength into the blow. It went into the open helmet, into the Elite's face, and she felt a sickening crack that traveled up her arm as she crushed the skull inside.

Six, with the world speeding back up, realized her breathing had gone ragged, almost a pant. She shook her head and looked around for her helmet, before stumbling off of the now very dead Elite to grab it. Six shook her hand, looking down at it. The gore and blood left the gauntlet, but it was rapidly becoming stained, the blue armor turning purplish from how often she had used it to kill Elites in the thick of her fights.

Scooping her carbine up from where she had dropped it, she felt her breathing begin to slow back down and found another, fresher plasma rifle to strap to her leg. By now, the other gondola had come to a stop next to hers, and she slid her helmet back onto her head before stepping onto it.

Cortana, watching through the armor's camera suite, sat cross legged in the expanse that was the Mjolnir's crystal layer. The Spartan was still getting lucky, and if Cortana wasn't wrong, and she rarely was, she'd bet that Six was running on luck alone at this point. Her armor was scorched and the titanium had already settled into its divot, a gray scar marring the blue armor. Her vitals were still higher than her average, and her heart rate hadn't completely stabilized. Breathing was slowing, but that could have been because an armored Elite had landed on her back and took her breath away, rather than fear. Then again, Cortana couldn't tell. Noble Six wasn't the Master Chief. Morgan wasn't John. The two were worlds apart, even if their armor was the same.

"Morgan? Are you alright?" She asked, and the Spartan's breathing hitched for a moment before it stabilized entirely, as if forced to slow down.

"I'm fine, just got the wind knocked out of me." Six could feel a bruise forming from way she had been brought down, her chest aching slightly from all the weight and the force that had been used.

Cortana frowned, but didn't push it. Six didn't need to be mothered or pried open. Not right now, at least. When they were safe, Cortana would try again, but with the Prophet of Regret less than a kilometer away, the Spartan didn't need any distractions.

But speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Six's comms suite activated, a voice coming through her ears. "How's it coming, you two?"

Cortana answered for Six before she could speak up. "So far, so good, Commander. We're approaching the main temple now."

"Roger that. I'm as close to the library as I can get. There's some sort of barrier or shield in place here. We're trying to find a way around it. I'll keep you posted. Keyes, out."

The channel cut and Six sighted along her carbine's body as they came closer to the temple. The shade turrets sat with Grunts at the controls. One of the tiny heads entered her sights, looking as if it was chittering at another Grunt next to it, and whatever it was saying was cut off as Six pulled the trigger and stopped its words forever.

The Grunt next to the turret was startled, staring a the body of its comrade for a moment, before what had happened registered and it began to scream, throwing its hands up and running. A Jackal armed with a shield roared something and the Grunt was taken off its feet by a timely impact courtesy of the Jackal's shield. Another turret, manned by another Grunt, began to sight in on the gondola, and opened fire.

Large bolts of purple and pink plasma came in, peppering Six's cover and punching through in some spots. The Spartan fired again and again, suppressing the turret as she retreated behind a thicker support pillar. The plasma kept coming in, and Six made herself as small as she could while she pulled the trigger, putting two rounds in the Grunt's chest and another in its head before the gun went silent.

The gondola was coming closer now, and it jolted as it impacted the rim of the platform and stopped. Green plasma fire started coming in from multiple different angles, and even a beam of purple from a Jackal sniper atop the ramp into the temple. Six swung out from cover and dove, tucking into a roll and sliding into the low wall, before pushing her plasma rifle over the rim and blind firing. A scream of a Grunt that had gotten unlucky went up and she smiled, if only a little.

More fire began to scorch the wall, and Six knew if she waited too long, they would advance and corner her. She counted to three, and stood, firing her carbine at whatever was closest, snapping to targets like she would on a firing range, and they went down under her withering barrage of fire. A group of Jackals were already moving up with their shields interlocked, and Six ripped another grenade from her belt before lobbing it at their feet.

They squawked and turned to run, presenting their unshielded backs, and Six took them down just like all the others.

The blue armored Spartan moved off of the gondola in a combat stance, her legs moving quickly but her upper body not moving at all, save to scan for further targets. The Jackal in the back with the beam rifle had been one of her first targets, and he lay dead in a puddle already. Six was beginning to move up the ramp when she saw a flash above, and she stopped to see what it was.

High above, Covenant ships numbering in the tens, then the hundreds, began to jump in, flashes of space being torn open and depositing their warships by the dozens. Then, another, much larger object. What looked like a jellyfish, made from steel and rock, appeared in the midst of the Covenant fleet, dwarfing everything else around it with ease.

"That's… that's the largest Covenant fleet I've ever seen. The largest _anyone_ has ever seen. We need to move, Lieutenant! We need to kill Regret before they can stop us!" Cortana didn't have to tell Six twice, not when the sound of so many ships jumping in was passing through the ring's atmosphere like a cacophony of thunder in her ears, something lighting could never hope to match.

The plasma rifle was in her hand and the carbine relegated to her back as Six sprinted into the dark hallways of the temple, lit only by the Forerunner's floor mounted lighting systems. A grenade was already in her other hand, ready to be used if anything got too close.

Elites rushed out to meet her as she entered the next room, two blue armored minors coming from the lower level, and a pair of honor guards coming from the ramp that led to the room above. The plasma rifle started to whine as Six took aim, pulling the trigger and leaving one of the Elites awash with plasma. Cortana sounded overwhelmed, even as Six primed the grenade and threw it at the honor guard, sticking one and letting the grenade flare blue before it detonated, the force launching the other honor guard off the ramp to the level below. "The fleet is unleashing a swarm of dropships too many even for me to track. We don't have much time!"

Six couldn't dwell on it, merely filing the information away as the combat took over her mind. The second Elite minor was downed with little issue, and the honor guard that had taken flight charged her from the right. The plasma rifle whined again and the Elite's shields held despite the punishment, getting close enough to swing at the Spartan with the ignited energy sword in his hand.

Six ducked the swing and grabbed the Elite's sword arm with both hands, causing a warble of surprise that morphed into a scream as Six snapped the arm in two places, grabbing the energy sword out of the air and bisecting the honor guard neatly with one swing.

She scooped her plasma rifle back up and sprinted up the ramp, the door having been left open by the guards that came out. "Careful, Lieutenant! Honor guards are crawling all over this place, watch your back!"

The next room had paths off to either side and ramps to go down, and a single ramp that went up a few feet before overlooking the area ahead. In the distance, there was a waterfall coming down, and just below it, a Prophet on a hover chair seemed shocked that she was there. Six didn't take any time to admire the construction of the room, running and vaulting over the waist high wall at the overlook and tucking into a roll on the ground below. Elites and Grunts came out of the woodwork to try and stop her, even using their own bodies to act as walls, but they were swiftly cut down by the energy sword and plasma rifle in her hands.

She was over halfway to the Prophet when she saw a flash on either side of his hover chair, and her instincts took over before she could process it. Her legs pushed her to the right, behind a pillar, as the hover chair's blasts left smoking craters in the floor. Six frowned, but didn't stay behind the pillar. More blasts were coming in and if she was hit, she wasn't entirely sure even her armor would survive it.

Running through the pillars, Six opened up with her plasma rifle, trying to drop the Prophet at range, but something flared into place. Energy shielding, and it was stopping all of the plasma from getting through. Cortana told Six what she already knew. "You aren't getting through the shield! You'll have to get in close!"

Six rolled as another blast came in, launching her as she barely managed to escape the immediate blast area. She tucked in the air, rolling and coming to her feet when her armor hit the ground again, but this time, rather than run to the side, she ran straight for the Prophet.

"The Great Journey will not be postponed, Demon!" The alien yelled out, the words already translated by Cortana. Although Six was running straight at the Prophet, more blasts came out, hitting the ground behind her. The Prophet's smug look after having shown the effectiveness of his guns was rapidly turning to fear as Six got closer. A pair of honor guards came form behind the chair and Six cursed, dropping the plasma rifle and sidearming another grenade at the Prophet itself, hoping to deal with it like that if she could.

When the plasma grenade hit, it didn't stick like it usually did, instead bouncing from the shields and falling to the ground. The Prophet quickly hovered away, and with the honor guards sprinting at her as it was, they were out of range. The grenade blew, and little damage was done to either party as the honor guards closed on Six.

She stopped her mad sprint just in time to block a hit from one of their swords with her own, ducking the second strike. With her heartbeat hammering in her ears, she pushed against the sword block, throwing the honor guard off balance just as the other swung. Six deflected the blow and brought her sword up against the Elite that had lost his balance, separating his head from his shoulders.

She struggled to block the other swing of the survivor, and felt the sword she held growing closer to her faceplate. If she held the block for long, she would lose. Thinking quick, she lashed out with a punch of her free hand, striking as quickly as if it were a coiled snake, and she felt the Elite's helmet crack and break under the assault. It dazed the guard long enough for her to put one quick swipe in, taking its arm off.

She backed away, backpedaling to get some distance, when another shot from the Prophet flew true to where she had been and finished off the Elite that had been left. The blast blew him to pieces, and Six cringed, knowing it would happen to her if she was hit.

With the way to the Prophet clear, she once again hurried for her target, energy sword alight in the darkness beneath the pillars and the upper level. Coming from the shadows, Six leaped into the air, flying for the Prophet that seemed to try and fire his cannons again, several consecutive warning bleeps coming from his chair and indicating they were still recharging. His expression of panic became one of pure agony as an energy sword, with all the force and weight of a flying Spartan, went through his chest and out the back of his hover chair.

Six pushed off of the hover chair as it lost power and fell, spinning around with the sword still in hand as another group of honor guards came out to play. Behind her, the Prophet's hover chair exploded, the flash backlighting her as the honor guard realized they had failed to protect their charge, and went into a rage, something Elite's of their status rarely did.

Six avoided them, sprinting along the upper level as she launched two plasma grenades at them. One was stuck, and he wisely dove away from his allies without a sound, dying when the grenade blew. The other fell to the ground, the Elites splitting up as one tried to climb up to where she was, the other two moving to cut off the exit.

"Bad news, the Phantoms are turning around, the fleet is preparing to fire on _our_ position. We need to get out of here, now!" Cortana's tone nearly screamed alarm at this, something Six picked up on. She put on an extra burst of speed, leaving the climbing honor guard behind as he crested the lip of the upper level and took a swipe at her legs. She dodged around it and kept going, the two other honor guards making it to the exit and coming after her. She leapt from the upper level, the two honor guard at the end turning back to go for the exit.

She was just barely quicker than them, leaving her final plasma grenade behind just as she got back into the sunlight. An explosion and more screams sounded behind her, but the sound of clattering hooves had not followed.

She heard a pulsating wail, and felt the subsonic thrum as the super carrier hanging above the temple began to give off a blinding light on its underside. The energy projector was spinning up, and she had only just begun to move when it fired, hitting the lake below.

Six took a running leap from the level she was on to one far below, dropping to a crouch as her knees and armor took the shock of the fall. The sound of water being vaporized hundreds of gallons at a time screamed at her backside as the energy projector was dialed up ever further, and the massive amount of plasma ionized the air. Tendrils of excess plasma licked at her heels, and she kept running, sparing only a moment's glance behind to see death himself chasing her.

Her breath was coming in quick puffs as she pumped her arms and legs as fast as she could, feeling the heat rising as the armor's temperature control system fought to keep her cool in the face of so much heat. She saw the end of the road, nothingness but the drop to the water ahead, and she took it, pushing off with as much force as she could and hurtling for the water below, her arms and legs flailing as she fell.

The plasma washed over her, accelerating her fall to the water to a much higher speed, and when she hit what may as well have been concrete, it was the last thing she felt before darkness overtook her. Her armor locked up as debris rained into the water around her, and something from the deeps, a primordial fear, wrapped itself around her midsection to drag her deeper into the depths below.

 _This is not your grave… but you are welcome in it_.


	9. The Chase is On

Cortana's 'mind' began to register what had happened, immediately taking note of the half hour of down time she had lost track of. Mjolnir was EMP hardened, and it would withstand the ionization of the air after a lengthy battle with the Covenant's plasma based weaponry, but being nearly hit by an energy projector meant to glass worlds and core starships meant that even Mjolnir had reached its limit, and the inhabitants along with it.

The AI set to work, trying to figure out what had happened, where they were, and whether Six was even still alive after what had gone on. The armor started to give back vital signs as Cortana queried it, frowning as she took note of what was being sent back. Six's vitals were in a state akin to early sleep. Her heartbeat had slowed even lower than the normal controlled pulse the Spartan exhibited. Brain waves showed she wasn't brain dead, at least, and she was still breathing without issues. The armor was showing signs of failure to sync properly to Six's neural interface. Being sent into another battle with glitchy armor wouldn't do the Spartan any good.

Sending a command to reboot the armor's systems, they shut down, and Cortana felt the space around her shrink significantly as she lost the armor's processing power and storage, relegated to her tiny AI chip and whatever wetware Six's neural interface provided her. She sighed at the cramped quarters, but more importantly, she worried about the still unconscious Six.

Very little had phased the Spartan so far, but she had made several slip ups during the fights since they had touched down on Halo. During the battles on the Cairo and the mobile offense in New Mombasa, Six had more than lived up to her designation of hyper lethal, barely taking hits despite her risks. But something had happened during the two week journey to Halo, and it was showing. Six had already lost a large amount of armor plating on her chest from the plasma bolt she had taken on the gondola, and that said little about nearly having her head ripped off almost immediately after. A Spartan losing their helmet during a fight wasn't exactly unheard of, but it meant that they were in significantly more danger, and as a result, Cortana was as well. She had seen the reports of fallen Spartans, and the Covenant taking their helmets as trophies if possible. She didn't want to think of it happening to Six, or happening and letting herself fall into enemy hands. She'd sooner activate the armor's failsafe and overload the nuclear reactor than let the Covenant take either captive, or add another trophy to their pile.

The armor's reboot diagnostics came back up, and it seemed to have cleared any lingering effects from the massive plasma discharge and overionization. Now, however, the armor blared a warning. Foreign contaminants were coating the armor, something that she had never seen before. Scans and basic chemical analysis didn't tell her anything more, but the armor's camera system noted something else. There was a heavy green fog, or mist, and the place looked like a dark hall way, one that dragged on into the distance for miles. Something else stuck out to the AI as well, something that screamed danger.

A gnarled tentacle continued to pull the Spartan along as if the armor weighed nothing, jostling her and her cargo about as if alive rather than just dragging them along like a vine. Cortana frowned deeper, and triggered the armor's shield system test. It started up, before blaring another warning. The ionization had drained the shield system's charge, and with the armor reboot, the shield systems were still coming back online. It would have spelled danger in a combat zone, and while Cortana didn't know where this tentacle was taking either of them, she had a feeling that it wasn't good.

* * *

Six's vision was blurred as her eyes cracked open, lights embedded in an otherwise dark ceiling passing by as if seen from a car moving too fast. A pressure around her body, like that of a steel coil, was pulling her around as if she was a ragdoll to be played with. Green eyes glanced over armor systems as they slowly cleared their vision, and she saw her mission timer had advanced half an hour at least since she had been nearly drowned by the Covenant's assault carrier.

Her HUD was flashing a dull red, and her armor made it very clear that it was distressed at having a drained shield. She shook her head, trying to clear the dull throb that went through her skull as she came to.

"Cortana, what happened? Where are we?" Six was straight to business as she felt her lips separate, having dried slightly while she was out.

"I don't know. The energy projector that they tried to glass us with seems to have knocked the armor, and us, out of commission." The AI responded, already sorting even deeper into the armor's internals as she split her attention to watch Six.

"Are we still combat effective?" Six could make it without shields, she had done so before, but if the armor was damaged more than that, she'd be in a world of trouble.

"Technically. The armor is showing green, but the shields are having trouble refilling, especially with this thing around us. I still don't know what it is, I only came back online a few minutes ago myself. It's been pulling us for at least that long, but who knows how much longer past that. The armor's systems have registered at least five miles of travel, and they're analogue, so they should be accurate, but… it's hard to tell at this point."

The tentacle seemed to writhe and tighten before loosening slightly, as if it was having a fit. It definitely wasn't attuned for fine motor control. Six grunted as the pressure eased. "Keep working on getting the armor back to full strength. Is there anything else I should know about?"

"Negative. You're not injured in any way I can tell, and your neural network isn't damaged. This pathway doesn't have any branches and it's been going like this for quite some time. All we can do is wait to see where it's taking us." She paused, before saying one more thing. "By the way, I know you can't right now, but don't pop your helmet seals. There's something in the air, and microscopic analysis detects spores of some type. I'll cross reference my data-"

Cortana paused, and Six felt an icy prick at the base of her skull. Something was wrong. Cortana didn't stop midsentence like that, and Six's own senses were telling her that whatever Cortana had found was going to be far from good.

"I know what these are. These are _Flood_ spores." The chill in Cortana's voice set Six's body on edge, and her fight or flight instinct kicked into overdrive.

"Flood spores?" Six had heard that somewhere. Flood. She began to fish through her memory, and then the chill in her neck traveled through every inch of her body.

"Yes, Flood spores. They're on the ring. We didn't detect spores in the air on the first Halo, and they transmitted their infections through pods, little crawlers that would burrow into their host in some way. The Master Chief was nearly infected at one point himself, a pod managing to break the seal on his neck armor, right below his neural interface port. The fact that there are spores here means the infection is likely far stronger, or at a more advanced stage."

Six cursed, shutting the air intake vents on her armor as a precaution. The filters in the suit would likely stop the spores, but she wasn't taking any chances. A hiss went through her helmet as the onboard oxygen supply started feeding her air. "Do you think maybe the Flood is what's captured us?"

"I don't know. If it was, I think an infector would have already gotten to you, with your shields down. Speaking of which..." The beeping of her shield system coming back online completely sounded in her helmet, and Six watched with a slight sense of relief as the shield bar began to fill up, chirping as it came back to full strength. With the golden lattice disappearing around her, Six gave a sigh as she let the defenses surround her once again.

"At least we have that going for us," she responded, and felt the tentacle shift again, jostling her enough to force a grunt. "We still have to deal with this, though."

Cortana hummed, and noticed something was changing. The hall was widening slowly, growing large enough that it changed from the size of a small hallway to something that could fit a Pelican through with ease. "Something's happening. I think we're getting close to the end of this trip."

Six struggled to look down towards her feet, where the tentacle's body lay, and felt herself hit the floor as the clumsy tentacle nearly dropped her. With another curse, she buried her anger. "At least it could be a little more courteous..." she huffed.

As the passageway came to an end, Six came face to face with what had brought her here, in all of its pestilent glory. An absolutely massive creature stood in front of her, covered in mottled gray material, with three large flaps revealing a toothy mouth surrounded by red material, looking almost like it was a bloody opening stripped of skin.

Cortana was the first to speak. "What… is _that_?"

To both their surprises, the creature spoke. "I? I am a monument to all your sins" The creature's deep voice was nearly a growl, and it reverberated off of the heavy armor Six wore. She could feel it rumbling against the undersuit, and nearly shivered at the feel.

She heard something, almost like struggling, before something came down from above, held aloft by two tentacles much like the one surrounding her. It was an Elite, one larger than usual, wearing ornate gray armor that lacked the closed seal her own armor gave her.

The Elite continued to struggle, writhing against the tentacles holding it up by its arms. Six called out to it, her voice warning. "Relax, I'd rather not piss this thing off."

The Elite, taking a moment to recognize her, seemed almost confused by her presence. "Demon! I watched your world burn as all your kin left you! You should have become nothing but ash!"

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off as the giant creature huffed and rumbled, before pulling Six slightly closer, as if inspecting her. "This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded." Six frowned, wanting to pull away as another tentacle wrapped around her head, before the Elite was brought closer, being turned upside down like a child's toy. "This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded."

The other captive of the creature gave a snarl, struggling harder. "Kill me or release me, parasite, but do not waste my time with talk!"

A louder rumble, like the creature was trying to clear its throat, left Six increasingly disgusted. "There is much talk, and I have listened. Through rock, and metal, and time. Now, I shall talk, and _you_ shall listen."

Another pair of tentacles came from below, one holding a glowing red orb, and the other with a rapidly decayed Prophet of Regret, one that had been sucked into a tentacle as thick as a tree trunk. The orb was brought forth, and it seemed to be able to influence the tentacle that held it as it fluttered towards Six.

"A reclaimer! I am 2401 Penitent Tangent, and I am the Monitor of Installation 05!" The orb skittered about, inspecting Six from multiple angles.

It was cut off from further questioning, as the Prophet of Regret broke in. "I am the Prophet of Regret, Councilor most high, Hierarch of the Covenant!" He was struggling with the words, and he looked weak, but it was surprising that he had survived at all, given his merging with the tentacle.

The Monitor got closer, almost touching Six's face plate. "We must activate this installation, and we must do it soon, if we are to have any hope of containing this outbreak!"

Regret cut him off again. "Stay where you are! Nothing can be done until my sermon is complete!"

The Monitor, finally breaking away from Six, sounded almost annoyed. "Not true. This installation has a successful utilization record of 1.2 trillion simulated and one actual. It is ready to fire on demand."

Regret shook his head in exasperation, ignoring the red orb as he looked to the Elite held aloft, now suspended upright once more. "Of all the objects our Lords left behind, there are none so _worthless_ as these Oracles! They know nothing of the Great Journey!"

The Elite, now known as the Arbiter, spread his mandibles wide, listening to his Prophet speak. The Monitor, however, refused to let Regret have the last word. "And you know nothing about containment! You have demonstrated complete disregard of even the most basic protocols!"

The orb was shaken by the tentacle holding it, and the misty breath of the creature holding them all captive filled the air. "This one's 'containment', and this one's 'Great Journey' are the same." The Monitor and the Prophet of Regret, having done what was needed, were pulled back into the depths of the chamber, the Prophet screaming as he was taken away. Pulling the Arbiter back to the front, he spoke once more. "Your Prophets have promised you freedom from a doomed existence, but you will find no salvation on this ring. Those who built this place knew what they wrought. Do not mistake their intent or all will perish as they did before."

The message seemed to strike a nerve in the Arbiter, as he stopped struggling, letting himself be presented and pulled at the creature's will, and Cortana's voice came through Six's speakers. "This thing is right. Halo is a weapon, and if they fire it, your Prophets will kill everything in the galaxy."

The Arbiter growled, mandibles spreading menacingly. "Your Demons have already destroyed one sacred ring, and I will not let you harm another."

The Arbiter was shaken violently as the creature attempted and succeeded in shutting him up. "If you will not hear the truth, then I will show it to you. There is still time to stop the key from turning, but first it must be found." He held the Arbiter up, rumbling again. "You will search one likely spot, and you", he indicated Six, "will search another. Fate had us meet as foes, but this ring will make us _brothers_ "

Six felt something start happening, the tentacle's grip on her fading as golden rings surrounded her, and everything went white.

* * *

Noble Six felt her body get turned inside out, almost, gritting her teeth against the feeling before she felt herself falling from the rings of gold, purple deck plating rising up to meet her.

Only her quick reflexes saved her from planting her visor into the floor, her arms reaching out and letting her roll to a crouching position. Keen eyes took in every detail as she looked ahead, seeing a confused Grunt behind a camera system pointed at the Prophets of Truth and Mercy, along with several Brutes that wore the same gear as those Elites assigned to the Honor Guard, with all of them looking back at her in shock.

Looking to the Grunt, she took an idea that came to her head, merely saying "Boo," and forcing the Grunt into a panicked frenzy, his needler rising into the air as he threw it in his haste to retreat. Six caught it, already aiming down the nonexistent sights, and pointed it at the Prophets. She could end the war right here, right now.

Her finger was already pulling on the trigger, even as Truth ordered his guard to kill the Demon that had appeared in their midst. Needler shards were halfway there already, and as the platform the Prophets were on began to lower into the ground, the shards were intercepted. A Brute honor guard had jumped in the way, taking the whole salvo in his chest. Now, with so many in one place, the shards supercombined, detonating with enough force to rip the giant ape like alien to pieces.

The platform was gone, and Six cursed as more Brutes rushed into the room, with Cortana already running the numbers. "More Brutes are flooding into the room! We don't have much time!"

The needler continued its barrage, Six setting her aim on a group of three Brutes rushing her with red plasma rifles. Six noticed they were different. They hadn't been wearing the powered armor that Six had seen during the assaults on Reach, notably during the Battle of New Alexandria. They were clad only in light gear, like bandoleers and shoulder pieces, and what may as well have been a pot helmet stuck on their hairy heads.

The next Brute went up in a pink mist, his comrades hit by the shrapnel that only caused them to get angry. Six knew that getting in close with a Brute would be near suicide. Elites were one thing, but a berserking Brute would snap her in half before she could kill it in a melee. She had one other option as the needler's ammunition ran out, and she hurled the now useless weapon at the Brute directly in front of her.

The hit seemed to stun it, but nothing more, and she sprinted forward, catching the giant ape off guard as she ducked under the arms as thick as trees, skirting past it just barely. A red plasma rifle lay discarded on the floor, and she scooped it up as she came back to her feet, and turned to let it vent plasma on its former owners. The weapon heated up much faster than its blue kin, and it kicked with more force, but it was evident that it was some sort of souped up alternative, and it melted through the Brute's with ease. One of them went down as his skull was melted to nothing, and the other caught fire as the hair all over his body ignited and left him burning to death.

To his credit, the Brute carried on, continuing to charge at the Spartan. Six held the trigger down, coring the Brute until she saw red plasma bolts hitting the wall behind the assailant. She began to think that she would run out and went to dodge, only for the Brute to fall dead at her feet without a sound, smoldering as the fires consumed his corpse.

Cortana called for Six's attention, a pedestal at the other end of the room getting marked. Six bolted for it, the horde of Brutes no doubt making their way to her. "Put me in the system, it'll be easier to track Truth there. He has the index, so he's our first priority."

Six frowned, even as she pulled the chip from the back of her helmet, and slotted it into the pedestal. Cortana flickered as she came up in the Covenant's network, letting Six replace the chip into her helmet once more. "I don't like this, Cortana."

The AI put her hands on her hips. "I don't care for it much either, but it's one of the few options we've got."

A voice sounded over the intercomm, deep and laced with gravel. "The Demon has infiltrated the council chambers! Kill it!"

Six cursed as the door in front of her opened, Cortana putting up another marker in her HUD. "Get a move on, Lieutenant! We don't have much time!"

The Spartan looked at the open door, then back to Cortana. The AI crossed her arms, huffing at the reaction she was getting, before she pointed her fingers with what wordlessly put an end to her Six's hesitation, and the Spartan took off at a run, plasma rifle clutched in her hands tightly.

A large room yawned open in front of her, filled with two Brutes and several Grunts. Six made short work of the Grunts as the plasma rifle whined angrily, matching the red bolts it launched. The Brutes were another story. They both charged her, and one was cut down halfway to her, but the second continued its berserk sprint, eyes glued to its prey as it burned alive. Six went to dive out of the way, but the Brute managed to grab onto her ankle just in time. Despite the Brute giving a loud wheeze as its lungs burned and crackled in its chest, it managed to give one final heave and slam her against the curved purple walls of the room.

Noble Six groaned loudly as she felt the impact vibrate through her enhanced bones. She tried to turn and open fire again, but by then the pressure on her ankle had released and the Brute had keeled over, dead from the immolation she had forced upon it.

Her breathing had quickened, and she stood up, feeling the pain in her ribs. She shook it off. Spartans always did. There would be no rest, not for her, not yet. Pushing herself forward again, she scooped a second discarded plasma rifle from the ground. With two weapons in hand, hopefully she'd be able to stop another charging Brute before it could inflict any more punishment on her. Cortana had been right, closing with Brutes was a bad idea, even in the advanced Mark VI. She didn't have bullets either. Plasma did the job well enough, but a bullet to the head was always preferable. If anymore decided they wanted to keep going while their insides were lit aflame, she'd be battered and beaten before making it to Truth.

The door ahead led out onto a platform that looked into the center of High Charity, and Six could see just how massive the station was. A metropolis sprawled out underneath her, leading to the center where a massive triangular figure sat amongst alien sky scrapers, a bright light cascading from the opening in the ceiling just above it.

"This place is bigger than I can cover, Cortana. Where is he now? If we lose him, he's gone." Six breathed into her comms, taken aback at everything she saw.

"Just keep moving, there's a grav lift at the edge of the platform, but you'll have to fight through more troopers to get there," Cortana answered.

Several more Grunts, a Jackal, and a Brute with one of the massive, bladed grenade launchers they had turned to see the Demon in front of them, and the Brute roared a challenge. The plasma rifles were snapped up in an instant and Six watched as the withering fire brought the Brute to his knees faster than before, leaving him a burning corpse on the ground. The Grunts, terrified at the loss of their leader, screamed and attempted to flee, but the Jackal retreated with his carbine pointed at Six's chest. It fired once, and then again, and Six took the fire on her chest, her shield bar screaming a warning as it nearly collapsed. She stepped forward and closed the distance with her massive strides, before using one of her rifles as a bludgeon, snapping the Jackal's neck as she hit its long snout with a resounding crack.

She hooked the plasma rifles to her thighs and grabbed the carbine, checking to make sure it was still loaded for the most part, and set off for the grav lift. The Grunts continued to cower to the sides, and with one hand still on the carbine, she drew one of her plasma rifles and finished them off. Little did she know, she'd done them a mercy.

Stepping towards the grav lift, Cortana appeared on a pedestal that stood next to it, similar to the one she had been inserted into. "Alright, now I just reverse the polarity and..." She cut off, before giving the Spartan a smile and gesturing to it. "Your elevator is here, ma'am," the AI said, and Six merely shook her head at the AI's antics, before jumping into the grav lift and riding down it, intent on continuing her bloody work and ending an even bloodier war.

* * *

Another set of doors, one in a seemingly endless group of corridors that ran through the massive alien station, opened and let Six see the view of the metropolis far below. She would need to traverse a small bridge to get to the next area, and it was making her nerves scream. That gut feeling she had was back in full force, but she didn't have time, nor the option, to wait and see what it all meant. Stepping into the bridge, she felt herself get dragged along on an unseen current, and then it happened.

An ear splitting roar went up as a large purple rift tore itself open in the air high above High Charity's city, and the UNSC _In Amber Clad_ rocketed out of it at high speed, weapons spewing tracer fire as the point defense system registered millions of hostile contacts on the station's interior.

" _In Amber Clad_!? What's it doing here?" Cortana's shock registered in Six's ears, but it wouldn't matter what the frigate was doing. Passing over head at the speed it was traveling, the displacement of the air as it flew by, and Six's lack of any traction, meant that her gut feeling had been right. She should have waited. It mattered not, not when a giant invisible hand seemed to snatch the Spartan out of the air and fling her away from the bridge.

Six's breathing picked up as she felt herself falling, her stomach wanting to climb into her throat. She had been through worse, but the falling wasn't what she was worried about. It would be the impact at the end that determined whether she walked off of this station or not.

Spinning end over end, she didn't get much of an idea of how far she was going to fall, or how far she would be from what was going to be her new resting place, but she didn't have time to worry about it. Ripping her knife from its place on her hip, she could see the purple wall coming closer with every revolution, before Six gave a yell and she struck out with the blade, sinking it deep into the metal and feeling her shoulder wrench in its socket from stopping over half a ton of armor and herself.

"Lieutenant!"

Six felt a hint of a whimper escape her lips as she grit her teeth, already focusing on shoving the pain down somewhere deep inside, and brought her other arm up to grasp the handle, her injured arm dropping to her side. "I'm fine, Cortana. Keep me on the right track." She glanced down, seeing the floor almost thirty feet below, and took the only option she had.

Pressing her knee to the wall, Six pulled the knife out, letting it drag with a screech of metal on metal. It followed her down, and as the ground rose up to meet her, she shoved the knife back in to slow her descent. The gut wrenching tear as her shoulder pulled out of its socket didn't come this time, and with a final jerk, she pulled the knife out completely and hit the deck below. A crash sounded in the distance, one that was far larger than her armor.

Breathing heavily, Six returned the knife to its scabbard, and took a knee, before grabbing her shoulder. A mental countdown later and she forced it back into its socket with another muffled grunt, and a sigh of relief. It would be enough for now, and the gel layer that encased her like a glove pressurized the area to keep it more stable. The added tightness in the area did enough to calm the ache that was growing in her shoulder. Her armor would normally inject painkillers into her system after critical injuries, but painkillers dulled the mind, and she needed to stay sharp. She would fight through the pain.

Cortana, her voice sounding distant in the Spartan's ear, continued to be the only other constant to this journey other than pain and the Alien presence. "Truth isn't far below you. Three Phantoms are loading up. You can see him if you look now!"

Six, reaching for the carbine that was still miraculously stuck to her rear armor, pulled it across her shoulder and sighted in, spotting the three Phantoms loading up below her. A group of Brutes were leading what looked to be Marines, and a smattering of gray let Six realize what was happening. Keyes and her Marines had been captured. There was no telling how many more Marines were still alive on this station, and she felt a pang of regret as she knew with a certainty that she wouldn't be able to save them.

She shook the thoughts away, and saw that two Prophets were in their midst, one leading ahead of the other, and she went to aim at the one in front. Even now, she could see the glowing index in his lap, and she let the crosshairs settle on his skull, before pulling the trigger with a loud crack.

The shot, traveling as fast as it was, covered the distance in an instant, but something else took the shot. A Brute had moved in front of her target, and with a start, she realized somebody else had beaten her to it. Several creatures were skittering across the floor, colored a dead looking gray. The tiny orbs continued on, splitting up and hurrying to those that lived, one of them latching onto one of the Prophets and taking him to the ground.

The Brutes, struggling to contain them, didn't notice her, but Six saw something meet her eyes. A Brute, bigger than all others she had seen, looked back at her with a massive hammer clutched in meaty fists. He snarled up at her, words of silence carrying out as he ushered the remaining Prophet into the Phantom and the rest of the Brutes took the other prisoners, splitting them up into the remaining Phantoms.

Six growled in frustration, taking sight on the remaining Brutes that continued to hold back the horde, and hurried down a nearby grav lift. They would be dead by the time she arrived, or heavily wounded by whatever was attacking them.

When her boots touched down once more, all but one of the little creatures were dead, and several of the Brutes had been killed, with only one remaining barely alive as friendly fire had left plasma burns across his chest and skull. Green muck covered the ground where the orbs had been crushed, and she could smell the scent of death even through her filters.

On the ground ahead, the Prophet continued to struggle against what was rapidly wrapping little tendrils around his frail neck. Six let her weapon fall, walking up to it. The Prophet, eyes wide with fear, noticed her. "The Demon!"

Six didn't waste any time, frowning behind her visor. "Your friend, Truth, where's he going?"

The Prophet continued to struggle, even as several tendrils began to poke out of his skin, some even coming from inside of his eye socket to wrap around the eye inside. "To Earth, to finish what we started, and this time-" He struggled again, his voice rasping as he tried to finish his sentence. "This time, _none of you will be left behind_."

With a moment of contemplation, Six grabbed the tiny pod and tore it from the Prophet's throat, and the Prophet gave a pained gasp, before he fell limp. Squirming in her hand was the pod, tendrils trying to reach her, and as one came closer, she gave a squeeze, and the pod popped without much force, leaving the green muck all over her hand.

Six grimaced, shaking the gore from her hand. Next to her, Cortana appeared on the arm of the Prophet's throne, standing at an angle. "You need to follow Truth, Lieutenant. He's heading for the structure in the center of the city. It's a Forerunner ship, and you know as well as I do that if he makes it to Earth, leads the Covenant there, we won't stand a chance."

Six frowned, looking at the retreating Phantoms. "That Brute has the index, _and_ Commander Keyes and Johnson. We can't let him fire the ring."

Cortana gestured to Six's shoulder, and the Spartan turned to see that _In Amber Clad_ had embedded itself deep into the wall of the station, critical damage showing all over the frigate's hull. "If he does, then I'll detonate the reactors just like I did on the first Halo. It'll destroy the ring and this city. Not very original, but I'm not looking for flare when I know it'll work."

Six, cursing inside her helmet, reached for Cortana, ready to pull her back in, when the AI held her hand out. "No, I'll stay in the system. I don't want to chance a remote detonation. Get going, now!"

Putting an end to the argument, Cortana shrank back into the Prophet's former throne, refusing to let Six take her out. Six frowned, and behind her heard a roaring crash, before she saw what had happened. A Pelican dropship had nosed into the ground and skidded along the decking, monstrosities pouring out of it. "Cortana, what are those?" Six's carbine was up, her ears filled with the screaming of the Covenant and the wails of the monsters ahead.

"Those are the Flood, Lieutenant. That thing, beneath the library, it tricked us! It had always intended to board _In Amber Clad_ , to try and get off the ring. Ships all over the Covenant fleet, already fighting each other, are being boarded and infected by the parasite. Ships are breaking off to quarantine the whole station. You need to be careful from this point on!"

Six took aim at one of the Flood combat forms ahead, dropping to her knee and pulling the trigger.

The carbine's fuel rod went in the combat form's chest and out the other side with no noticeable effect, before it turned to her and screeched. What had once been a Marine was baring down on her, and she fired several more times before she separated its arm from its shoulder, the massive whip that had replaced it falling to the ground.

"Six, aim for the bulge in its chest! That's the weak point!" Cortana advised Six, and she listened well, shifting her aim at the sprinting combat form and firing again. This time, it fell to the ground, dead once more. Others, dealing with Covenant forces, were able to overwhelm the aliens, before they turned on Six next.

Several combat forms, made up of Elites, Brutes, and Humans, rushed her. She scooped one of the discarded plasma rifles from the ground and opened fire, the heat doing well to burn away necrotic and mutated flesh. Globs of biomass fell from each form, disintegrating under Six's withering barrage as she backed up to the edge of the platform. Her foot brushed the lip at the edge and she dared not look down, hoping she would finish the Flood off before they got to her.

She was lucky, the last one falling only feet from her, and with her heart hammering in her chest and the plasma rifle venting heat, Six pushed forward and grabbed another discarded plasma rifle, setting up to do her bloody work once more. It had been a long day, and Noble Six knew deep within, that she was only just getting started.


	10. A Noble Cause

Noble Six had stepped out of a war and into a horror film, lost in a run and gun fight that had her facing off against aliens that would give King Kong a run for his money and a fast acting zombie of the worst variety.

She had burned through more ammo than she thought even she could, taking only a few seconds at a time to stop and scoop up another weapon, discarding a previously empty one. Reloading was out of the question. She didn't have the time to scavenge for ammo besides whatever was already loaded into the weapon. Guns both Covenant and UNSC had been precision instruments in her fight against the dead and the living, taking life that wasn't even able to be considered alive anymore, but still screaming into the fog filled High Charity. A green, disgusting fog that wrapped around her armor like the excitement and the fear that wrapped around her heart. The warrior in her was at home, settled into a conflict that let the lone wolf, forever in her mind, howl at a moon obscured by the sickening miasma. The Human in her, the little girl that had never quite grown up despite the enhanced physique, wanted to scream out in fear.

Augmentations thrown into her so long ago, filling her veins with napalm and striking every nerve with an icepick, changes to bring out the primal ancestor buried deep within her genetics. A roar went up, but this time it came from within the blue, gore covered armor. It was a guttural roar, from deep within the chest of Morgan-B312 as she fought herself into continuing on. Every new enemy, every barely dodged swipe, every bounced bullet, every splash of plasma over her chest plate, and she could feel her will to keep going bobbing like a sinister metronome.

She was hungry, her nonstop fight from _In Amber Clad_ to now leaving no time to scarf anything real down. She was tired, weary from the struggle against letting herself fall victim and joining those that would not die. She was at her limits, fighting this new foe alongside the old one. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, blood flooding through her veins like a river during a storm. She would not falter, she would not fall. Not here. Not now.

The buck of a stolen battle rifle against her shoulder, and then the ammo counter read an electric blue 0, and it was discarded as if it hadn't existed. A carbine scooped off of the ground and fired repeatedly, the rhythmic knocking of the recoil matching the drum beat that was Noble Six's heart. It egged her on even more, the warrior inside of her grinning like the scratched in design that had been on Emile's helmet, left to the glasslands. A movement here, a twitch there, and the carbine's barrel was in her hands as she swung the thick stocked weapon like a club. A Flood combat form took it on the shoulder, the weapon sinking deep inside and coming to a halt as it cleaved through rotten bone and flesh, and Six let it go, kicking the Flood form away. It left one of its legs behind and the small pod in its chest, just barely saved from being clubbed, skittered out to find another host.

Six was already moving on, a pair of plasma rifles coming into her hands as the Flood devoured a pair of Brutes. They wouldn't need these. Not anymore. The plasma rifles whined loudly as they unloaded on the two rapidly morphing Brutes. Both were burned down without much effort on Six's part, melting into the decking as her stride remained steady.

Her motion tracker was filled with red, not a single yellow dot in sight. She was surrounded, she was alone, she was in her element. Her long dormant fears fought her conditioning for control of her mind, but Morgan refused to let herself fall to the fear. She had a job to do, and she would have it done.

More combat forms rushed in, being gunned down by the twin streams of red bolts. The smell of death and cooked flesh filled her filters, and she felt the gag constantly at the back of her throat. Her nose wrinkled in agitation, adding to the scowl that was burned into her face at this point. She had had enough of this, and she was making it known as she continued to cut a path through those that would stop her. Truly, she was a hyper lethal vector, all conscious thoughts of misunderstood emotions and war weariness were gone. Even the fear seemed somewhat muted against this. In their stead, something else remained. The beating of the drum, the beating of her heart, the ever constant march on. Her entire life had led up to this moment and others like it. Those that had fought in the great wars of Humanity's past, those that had died in ditches filled with shit and other poor souls just outside of great stone castles, those that had been the first to crush their fellow's heads with rocks and sticks. They all contributed to this one moment, this Spartan tearing through that which would stop Humanity's advance through time.

Another roar left her throat feeling raw, and her voice even now was hoarse as a tentacle whipped out and hit her chest. The Spartan's forward momentum was stopped, and even her large mass could be thrown, it seemed. Her weapons remained in locked gauntlets, but her feet left the ground, and she felt weightlessness until she slammed into a column far behind before she slid to the ground on her backside. A cough, and the sickly feeling of her ribs shifting ever so slightly, and she was back up, fingers hooked on the trigger and her assailant left in a smoking heap.

Her breathing was fast, coming out in thick puffs of air that let her mighty lungs take in the oxygen they needed, and she felt her wind return to her. Charging forward again, she was through another door and into a brawl, Brutes and Flood duking it out as if it was a street fight.

Even though they were as different as night and day, she felt a kinship as she saw the Brutes berserking about, crushing, hitting, clubbing, even biting the Flood forms that dare step foot on the Covenant's holy city. They were stirred up ever further by the incessant speeches of the Prophet of Truth over the intercomm, their frenzy brought to an end only by death, before being turned into an unwilling servant of the Flood.

It mattered not to the last Noble, a woman born of fire and glass, as she waded into the fight without a second thought, plasma rifles blazing in both hands as she continued to cut down anything that wasn't herself.

Morgan, plagued by isolation and the loss of her childhood, had been reborn once again. She was something else entirely, more than just a Spartan. She was living up to the armor she was filling for her predecessor. In another world, a machine of a man would be parting the rotten tide, but this was not that world. Now, a blue berserker flanked by the ghosts of her siblings, clawed her way out bit by bit, inch by inch. She was driven by many things. By animalistic rage, by primal survival instincts, by duty and responsibility, but more than anything, she was driven by the faint image of those ghosts. They were waiting for her, always waiting, and it hurt her to do it, but she would make her family wait just a little longer. Something else came before they did.

_A Noble Cause._

* * *

Cortana, buried deep within a tide that crashed over her like a wave, fought off yet another cyber attack. The Covenant had an AI hidden away deep within their system, one that could go toe to toe with the UNSC's best. Something was off about it, something different, something foreign. A symbol continued to show as she felt her firewalls hold against one more attack, one that hit like a building being thrown at her. A large and small hexagon surrounded by a circle. A feeling that made her think of repentance.

It continued to fight against her, to try and decouple the Forerunner dreadnought in the center of the infested city, a rotten hive falling by the second. Ships of Covenant origin remained locked in a fight for survival, and others struggled to keep quarantine as Flood captained ships bolted, intent on infecting the galaxy with their ever hungry desire to spread, to contaminate, to devour.

Another hit against her barrier and she gasped in the purple tinged Covenant network. She was nearing failure. She wouldn't be able to hold it for much longer against whatever this was. She was about to speak, to remind Noble Six that they were on a time limit, when she heard it.

The howl that went up as she fought from beneath a horde of Flood, bashing and swinging and flailing with all the martial prowess of an asylum patient. Infection forms popped under the immense strength, and combat forms were broken and battered by a hurricane of punches and pistol whips, the Spartan not stopping for a second as she continued on her path. All that mattered was the objective marker lit in bright blue on her HUD.

Cortana felt a pang of sorrow, or what her programming told her was sorrow, as she watched Noble Six continue on against an overwhelming horde. The woman clad in blue, the one that had taken _his_ place, was not only a hyper lethal vector, but a mystery even to Cortana. She was so like John, but at the same time, so very different. A man made of machine and nerve, stoic and straight to the point always, replaced by a woman that was mentally, emotionally, falling to pieces. The antithesis of all that made the Master Chief what he was, and she somehow closed the distance between their levels with sheer will. What brought such power to Morgan-B312, Cortana didn't know, but the AI felt a chill in the coding that surrounded her. Whatever made Noble Six what she was in that moment, Cortana would never let it happen again, would never let something try to harm the Spartan that she had taken as her own after the near death of the Master Chief.

Another wave breaking against the wall of her defenses tore her mind away from the desperate fight for survival fought by Noble Six, and Cortana was forced to dedicate the entirety of her processing power to it.

Morgan was on her own, as much as Cortana hated it.

* * *

Left to her own devices, Noble Six was running on fumes. Another Flood combat form sprang up, its unholy wail catching her armor in such a way that it automatically lowered her helmet volume, leaving it to sound like it was more distant than it actually was. A shotgun roared in Six's hands, ripping the former Human to shreds as the buckshot pattern expanded.

The slide racked back, and forward again, just in time to catch a Grunt loaded down with infection forms. She had done the poor creature a mercy, much as she hated the aliens, and the infection forms that weren't outright popped by the shock detached and scurried off to find another host. They were crushed underfoot as Six carried on.

A Human SMG chattered in the distance, like a typewriter writing up someone's obituary. She ignored it. It wasn't her problem to deal with if it wasn't in her way. She needed to get to the conduit. If she failed, she had more than a little idea of what would happen to Earth, and she dare not think of her homeworld turning into a ball of glass under the echoing laughter of angry gods.

Another boom as the shotgun kept an enemy away, and the slide ejected the last shell. Six had already let it go and dropped it before the shell even hit the decking beneath, covered in gore and alien blood. Plasma rifles once again left her hips and took to her bloody crusade with high pitched whines that her ears had long ago gotten used to.

It felt like a night that was dragging on for far too long as she continued to rampage through the darkened halls of a High Charity being swallowed by the living dead. Morning wasn't coming, not for this city. The sun had forever set on the Covenant's mutual holy land, and it had become little more than a graveyard for over seven billion souls, twisted to the will of an ancient mind hellbent on revenge that was born before the firing of the rings.

Her visor remained clear, even as the hot puffs of her breath pushed against it. Moisture wicking padding in the helmet's interior kept her from blinding herself with sweat that never made it far enough to drip into her eyes. Her legs burned and her arms were locked in a firing stance. She dare not stop moving or lower her arms for an instant, because even as a Spartan clad with the best armor the UNSC could get, she knew if she stopped, or gave herself any rest, her momentum would die, and she would along with it.

Cortana had gone silent in her ears, too busy with the Covenant's AI program, too busy keeping her exit path clear. The isolation, the lack of the AI's snarky comments, the curiosity, even the thinly veiled prodding and prying, was louder than any conversation that Cortana could have brought to her. All Noble Six had to remember she wasn't truly on her own was the ever present destination marker in Six's HUD, telling her that Cortana was always updating her progress, but neither of them could deal with a distraction, not right now.

A grav lift yawned open in front of the lone Spartan, and as she held overheating plasma rifles in both hands, she turned to the rear, checking her six despite the lack of contacts on her motion tracker, and backed into the grav lift.

The floating sensation did little for her empty stomach, for her barely concealed fear, both of them held at bay only by adrenaline and the training that clung to her deep in her mind. With a silent moment of thanks, she let her mind drift to Kurt, her teacher, one of the surrogate fathers the Spartan IIIs had trusted in under the thousands of sunrises on Onyx.

Her break was over before it could do anything for her, other than let her think of the burning in her limbs. She was tossed out, landing on her feet at the top of the lift, and she heard a curse as Cortana's voice once again made itself known.

"You need to move! Don't stop now! The grav lift didn't take you to the top where the conduit is, and I can't hold this off for much longer!"

The unease in Cortana's voice made it clear to how close her efforts were to failing, and Six was already in motion. It wasn't hard to get her legs pumping again, but it would be hard to stop her unless the Flood got the drop on her again. She couldn't let her guard down, not until she was up and on that dreadnought.

The Spartan turned at the exit of one of the great doors, leaving behind a room full of sealed caskets for the Covenant's Arbiters. While she was unaware of the purpose of the room, had the mausoleum's inhabitants been possessed by the Flood, Six never would have made it out of that room alive, forced into servitude to an ancient evil.

A chill crawled up Six's spine as she passed the threshold, and she couldn't place why, but it left her feeling uneasy. She forced it down, not slowing as she hurtled through the hallways and the intersections, turning down another hall when the objective marker shifted. The purple decking, lit by dim lighting, and covered with the spreading green Flood biomass, left Six trapped in a nightmare that seemed to go on forever.

Another turn led her to a new grav lift, and she moved to step into it when she felt it. Something had latched on to her, a massive tentacle wrapping around her waist and yanking her back out of the room. Her legs and arms launched forward, still traveling while her torso was snatched. A grunt came from within the blue helmet, and she struggled to look back before she was thrown into a wall, her shields collapsing as she slid to the floor. Her helmet made a loud crack as it dented the wall.

Pain traveled up her back and into her skull, and she fought against the blackness that crept at the edges of her vision. The tentacle wrapped around her torso, sticking her left arm to her chest, unable to move against the incredible strength the puppeted Elite brought to bear against her.

Six heard Cortana yell something, but it fell on deaf ears, muddled as if traveling through water. Something was coming from the side as the Elite roared in her face, green droplets of spit, or puss, or something spattering against her faceplate. Struggle as she might, her arm wasn't coming loose, and her blood ran cold as she realized what was coming. An infection form skittered up to the Elite's shoulder and then onto the tentacle holding her. It kept coming, and that same animalistic drive returned to Noble Six's mind.

Legs honed by years of training and given god like strength by the power of Mjolnir pumped out, snapping the Elite's right leg as the pod latched onto her shoulder. Her free arm came to her hip, and in one swipe she pulled it out and across the tentacle. It held on tightly, however, connected only by a thin sliver of mottled gray flesh that Six saw pulsing in the faint light. Her knife flashed again, shining brightly as it reflected the lights from her armor and the overhead lights, and it severed the tentacle. With no way to reach the infector that had transitioned to her neck, she did all she could think to do, jumping back with all her strength and slamming into the already dented wall.

A muffled squelch and a pop came as the infector was crushed between the wall and her armor, coating her neck and the collar armor in green fluid. Her fight wasn't over though, not yet. The Elite, roaring with what may well have been anger, attacked with the remaining arm it had. Another tentacle was forming already, the sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh filling Six's ears as her knife continued to flash, cutting deep into the monster's arm as she fought it off with blade and fist. The strength possessed by the Flood was nearly too much for the fatigued Spartan, and she felt herself forced back. Then she felt her foot roll.

Something was beneath her boot, somehow not crushed by it, and then she realized what it was. A stray plasma grenade had rolled into arm's reach, and now she saw her way out. Ducking beneath one of the wild blows, she grabbed the grenade and primed it, before punching into the Elite's rib cage with enough force to shatter rotten bones and pierce liquefied organs. The blazing blue grenade went in, but it did not come back out, and with a kick to the combat form's midsection, it was shoved down the hallway.

Six didn't waste her opening, instead pushing through to the grav lift once more. A scream filled the air as the prey escaped, and a moment later, an explosion cut it short as one more soul was given freedom from the Flood's control.

Weightlessness took over, and the nausea was swallowed as she ascended once more from what may have been Hell itself. The holy city beset by demons held aloft by rotten strings was left behind, and the final obstacle stood in her way as she was deposited at the top of the lift. In the distance, the Forerunner dreadnought was alight with purple fire spewing from its thrusters, likely incinerating whatever still lived beneath it as buildings collapsed all around it from the force of its thrust.

Her weapons had been lost in the fight with the infector and its crony, and a flash to her right was just what she needed. An energy sword hilt sat on the deck, its light snuffed out much like the light of whoever had wielded it.

Six snatched it, a single flick of her wrist bringing the light back into the weapon, and the heat of the plasma reassured her as she ran for the conduit held above her. Several combat forms tried to stop her, bodily blocking her from moving on as she cut, sliced, and stabbed her way through them. Ahead, an all Brute squad struggled against the tide, falling and becoming nothing more than another set of demons for her to purge.

She danced through the Flood, bobbing and weaving, and when the roars fell silent and her motion tracker was cleared of red, the Spartan finally found herself gasping for air. Limbs that burned from the acid in her muscles screamed for relief. Her heart thundered louder than any storm or barrage of gunfire. Then she saw the purple form of Cortana on the pedestal next to the ledge.

She looked apologetic, gesturing to the conduit that glowed a bright green. "You need to go, now."

Six reached out for her, and the AI held her hand up, stalling the Spartan's efforts to bring her along once again. Green eyes glared through the golden visor, meeting the electric blue that looked almost sad. "I'm not leaving you here for the Flood."

Cortana gave a gentle laugh, shaking her head. "You're more like him than I thought, you know?" Her smile disappeared, and she looked to the ship in the distance. "You have to leave me, Morgan. You have to get to Earth, stop Truth and the plans he has for the rings. Now please..."

Cortana didn't finish it, and Six fought every instinct she had. She wouldn't leave another behind. She wouldn't leave Cortana here, and as the AI realized that, she shrank back into the pedestal, her voice jolting Six.

"I'll keep the conduit open as long as I can, but we're running out of time."

Six frowned, angry that she would be losing yet another person, another friend. The AI had irritated her, amused her, aided her, even cared for her in her own sense. Only the others, those of Noble, had done as much. Jorge's words echoed in her ears as Six finally gave in and left Cortana behind, leaping into the conduit and getting accelerated towards the Forerunner ship.

_Tell 'em to make it count_

The conduit cut out before Six had made it through, and she twirled through the air as the dreadnought's door began to close on her. She barely made it through, landing on her hip and sliding down the length of the corridor, sparks flying like embers.

As Six came to a halt, she stood, looking back at the now closed doors as Cortana called out to her one last time. "When you make it to Earth… good luck."

An armored gauntlet came to rest against the door, the woman behind the visor trying her best to stare through the metal. "After I've finished with Truth, I'll-"

Cortana cut her off. "Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it."

The channel cut out, and Six tried once, then again, to have Cortana by her side if only a little longer, if only to tell herself that she wasn't leaving the AI to be cut apart by the Flood. She failed, with every try, and moments later, she felt the jolt of the ship entering Slipspace.

* * *

Noble Six, buried deep within the corridors of the Forerunner dreadnought, heard static fill her comms network, and then voices.

"Sir, we've got a new contact, unknown classification!"

The deep tone of Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood came on, giving the order as easily as any other. "It's not one of ours, take it down."

She was going to be shot down, and Six knew that was a death sentence. "This is Spartan-B312, can anyone hear me, over?"

Hood's voice again. "Isolate that signal! Lieutenant? You mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?"

Six felt everything come to a head, thinking of plenty of ways to respond, telling Hood exactly what had happened, but she settled for something else. Something iconic.

"Sir. Finishing this fight."


End file.
